


Into The West

by Vulkan192



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games)
Genre: Action/Adventure, Gen, Grey Wardens, The Cure, War
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-08-22
Updated: 2018-12-25
Packaged: 2019-07-01 00:30:55
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 4
Words: 22,923
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15762912
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Vulkan192/pseuds/Vulkan192
Summary: Seven years after the Hero of Ferelden defeated the Archdemon Urthemiel, he sets out on one last desperate errand: to remove the Blight that runs through his blood, to stop the Calling, and win the right to grow old beside his family. This quest will take him far from Thedas, to where the stars are strange and the people even stranger.





	1. Prologue

_“Darkspawn!”_

_The word - roared by the booming voice of a Sten of the Beresaad - tore Theron’s eyes open. Flinging aside the bearskin that covered him and his lover, he grabbed for his blades. Feeling the familiar and well-worn leather strips that criss-crossed the hilts of the dar’misaan and dar'misu, he ripped them free of their scabbards and leapt through the slitted flap of his tent’s entrance, his armour forgotten behind him._

_Around him, what had been a tranquil campsite was now transformed into swirling chaos. The night sky was cloudy, but the pale silver light of the moon had broken through a gap in the roiling thunderheads about, illuminating the clearing beyond the flickering aura of light given out by the central fire. It illuminated his companions, most of them scrambling as half-armed and bleary-eyed from their tents as he. It illuminated the only two of the party that had been on guard - and thus were fully ready for battle - as they charged into the fray. Bellowing a war cry in the language of his people, Sten dove towards their attackers, the sunlight glinting from the greatsword blade held above his head. Alongside him, Shale - terrible, implacable, and stunningly irreverent for a walking statue - thundered a step beside and behind._

_It illuminated the Darkspawn._

_Streaming from the trees they came, the faces of elves distorted and profaned by the Blight until they now looked more like hounds. Vicious claws gleaming in the moonlight at the end of unnaturally long limbs. As they ran, long loping strides carrying them across the ground with horrific speed, there echoed forth the strangled, tortured howls that gave the creatures their names: Shrieks. The sound froze his blood._  

_Fighting down the innate fear that threatened as he had in every battle before, Theron launched himself to attack one of the creatures. A taloned hand swept down. With the grace of a dancer, the merest pivot on one foot, he avoided it. In reply, the Dalish blades in his hands flickered forward. The hand that had threatened fell away, to the anguished howl of its owner, before the terrible sound was cut short as the twin blades cleaved the things head from his neck. Black blood spurted, fountaining high as the maimed body went one way and the head another, but it held no terror for him. He was a Grey Warden, the same blood flowed through his veins._

_On he strode, never shirking the fight, only ever withdrawing to leave his chosen victim open to devastating counter-assault. Around him, battle raged. Beside him, just as poorly garbed for war as he - though neither of them so because they had spent the night in the arms of the one they loved - Alistair and Oghren fought with all the ferocity a Templar and a Berserker could muster. Overhead, magefire crackled, both that of Wynne and his lover, Morrigan, whilst closer by Leliana and Zevran’s arrows sped past with a sibilant hiss._  

 _He smiled as he gutted another foul creature, felt the blood spray. This is where he belonged. Between monsters of darkness and those he loved. On and on the Shrieks came, again and again his blades rose and fell, the steel forged by Master Ilen parting blighted flesh like parchment._  

_At last, all was silent._

_Around him, the others were panting, their eyes pinned wide with exertion and surprise as the fire of battle left them and they felt their true weariness. Oghren sat down with an angry sigh as his battle-wroth retreated, leaning his axe’s haft against his shoulder. Beside him, Zevran opened his mouth to make comment, but another voice cut across him._

_“You... **lethallin** …”_

_He knew the voice that called him, knew what he would see when he turned around to face who had said those words, spoken in a voice in utter torment. But when he turned, it was not Tamlen’s face he saw. It was not the face of his old friend he saw, torn and ruined by the Blight. It was not Tamlen’s skin that was blackened and corrupted, not Tamlen’s face that was covered in sores that wept black ichor, not Tamlen’s eyes that sat bleared and bloodshot within the dark hollows of his skull._

_It was his own._

 

* * *

 

Theron’s eyes snapped open. Beneath the sheet that covered him, his skin felt clammy, covered in a thin sheen of cold sweat. Inside his chest, his heart was beating as rapidly as if he had just run a race, or fought a battle. With each beat, his blood pounded his ears, preventing him returning to sleep if he had even the slightest desire to. His blood, that was what it all came down to. Or rather, what ran within his veins along with it: The Blight.

For months the dream, or something like it, had dogged his thoughts, disturbed his nights. No matter how far he had fled - even here, to this other world - the Blight would never leave him. It was a part of him, had been ever since that night at Ostagar over seven years ago now. The night he drank from the Joining Chalice and became a Grey Warden. The powers it had given him - enhanced speed, strength, and stamina, the connection to the Darkspawn horde - had let him unite a nation, kill an Archdemon, and save the world. But they had a cost. That cost was why he had to do this; why he and Morrigan had put effort into finding a way to divert it, cast it aside, cheat it entirely. It was why their little family knew there would come a day he would have to leave and possibly never return.

Today was that day.

Gently pushing aside the coverlets atop his body, careful of waking Morrigan as she slept beside him, Theron rose and softly padded across a bedchamber now so familiar that he wouldn’t have needed eyes, let alone the inherent night-vision of his people, to make his way to the door that led to the small balcony. Opening it, he slipped through it in near-silence and stepped out onto the terrace.

The sun - or what passed for it in this place - had not yet risen, though the dark of night had lightened to a grey twilight. The mist that ever-wreathed this world of theirs had once again - thankfully - receded to a reasonable haze. In truth, he’d be sorry to leave this place. Even if he succeeded in the task that lay before him, if everything he hoped for was achieved and he was left free to live a full and happy life with the woman he loved and the son that was dearer to him than breath itself, he would still never return here. He and Morrigan had discussed it: time had come for _all of them_ to return to the world they had left behind.

Laying his hands on the cool stone of the balcony’s balustrade, he stood silent, letting the cool night air dry the sweat from his naked skin. With practiced swiftness, he calmed his mind, seeking once again the centre of his soul and instilling it with the peace that it sorely needed. All would be well. He would succeed. Morrigan would never have to suffer as he had when he had found Tamlen all those years ago. He would defeat this enemy, as he had all the others, even if it was something that coursed through his veins.

A hand, soft and warm, touched the centre of his back, between his shoulder-blades.

“The dream again, my love?” Morrigan’s voice was soothing with its open concern, something the Morrigan he had first met would never have so easily exhibited.

“Yes.” he answered, with a nod. Then a thought came to him and he chuckled, albeit darkly, as he looked over his shoulder at her. “A shame you need now ask that of _both_ men in your life.”

Morrigan’s hand left his back, cupped his chin. When she spoke, concern had been replaced with strength. “Kieran’s dreams will fade and _yours_ will end the moment you find the cure I have tracked down for you.”

He nodded again. It had been a strange tale she had discovered, of an explorer from the Anderfels who had crossed the great desert to the west and, beyond it, discovered mages with powers beyond imagining: men who could alter the very fabric of the world beyond even the capabilities of the most powerful magister of ancient days. He was recorded to have seen remove cancerous growths with but a thought, something not even the finest trained healers could accomplish. He had seen men attack one and be wiped from existence as if they had never been. Not by fire, or ice, or lightning. They had simply ceased to be. If there was any who could remove the Blight from his veins that yet lived, it was these strange mages of the west.

But they were far away now. Only she stood before him.

Breathing her name, he opened his arms and enfolded his love in an embrace. For a few brief moments, as he closed his eyes, she became his entire world. All he could smell was the scent of her hair, all he could hear was the sound of her breathing, all he felt the warmth of her skin against his. In answer to his embrace, she kissed him. It was a good kiss, full of fire and love and longing, just as each they had shared every time since that first moment by the stream in the foothills of the Frostbacks.

The memory of that day kindled fresh desire. A hand slid from where it played at her neck amongst the raven locks that lay now unbound, instead ghosting feather-light over the smooth curve of her back, then to what lay further down.

At his attentions, Morrigan broke their kiss, her lips curling into an arch smile. “Ah, I see. You wish a repeat of this night’s endeavours, my love? And what of our son? Dawn swift approaches and he will need waking if he is to eat before seeing you off.”

“On today of all days, _ma vhenan_ ,” Theron answered, kissing the elegant curve of his love’s neck. “I think Kieran might be permitted to lie-in.”

Her answer was a chuckle. “As you say.” with that, she drew back, towards the door. “Come then, I would rather have you in our bed, than on these ancient stones.”

Following on behind her, his grey eyes fixed on the rather magnificent view before him, Theron smiled. For a time, at least, all his concerns and thoughts of leaving were lain aside, in favour of something altogether finer.

 

* * *

 

A little while later, the small family sat within the main room of the building they had made their home. Once it had been nothing more than a way-station, a place for the ancient elves making use of the network of Eluvians to meet and proceed on their journeys together. Now it was their home, a place of refuge where they could live in a peace so long denied to them, free of pursuit by those who would take a dangerous interest in all three of them. A fire crackled in the room’s great hearth, lending the place a warmth the stone of its construction might otherwise rob from the air, and before it sat dozing the great bulk of Karas, the family’s ageing mabari war-hound.

The meal they ate together was simple fare, but both hearty and pleasing to the taste: thick cuts of smoked bacon, cooked until the fat became caramelised and crunchy, along with a crumbly, tangy cheese from Nevarra, accompanied by three cups of small ale to wash it all down. Finally there was the bread - made in joint effort by Theron and Morrigan from the supplies he brought back every six months or so. It had been quite the experience, learning to bake. Theron still smiled every time he remembered the chaos of the first few attempts, or more specifically Morrigan’s enraged scolding of the bread-oven, her threats somewhat dampened by the dusting of flour on the tip of her nose. But now they had the method right and so the loaves were light, fluffy, and - most importantly - filling.

Looking to his right as he sat at the head at the head of the table, Theron smiled at his son. Kieran was growing fast, faster than he could imagine. It seemed only yesterday he’d been that smiling, gurgling, bundle of swaddle-cloth Morrigan had shown him when he first came to this place with her. Now seven years old, his little man was staring solemnly at the piece of bacon he was pushing around his wooden plate with his fork.

“Kieran?” at the sound of his voice, his little boy looked up and met his gaze. Theron’s smile softened all the more as he did so. His son would always look human: it was the way of things when elven blood mingled with that of the shem’len. But it was his own grey eyes that looked back at him now, inquiringly. “What’s wrong, little cub?”

He could guess the answer, they’d already told Kieran of today’s planned departure the day before.   Still, he let the little man give reply. It came in a quiet, curious voice. “How long will you be gone?”

The bluntness of the question and its implications made him wince. “I do not know, _da’len_.” his smile returning as one of reassurance, he put a hand to his son’s arm. “But I will not be gone a heartbeat longer than I have to. Do you understand?”

Kieran nodded slowly. Theron did not doubt that he did. Twin-souled as he was, bound to the spirit of the Old God Urthemiel, Kieran possessed a wisdom far beyond his years. Sometimes, that maturity was troubling, especially in one so young. Part of him wished he had never placed such a burden on the little lad, but if he had not, then he would not now be here to watch him grow. Indeed, Kieran himself might not even exist, seeing as it was only the ritual that had bound him to the Old God’s essence that had overcome the Blight’s affect on his ability to sire a child.

Putting such thoughts from his mind, Theron patted his son’s arm. “Good boy.”

“Now, little man, are you content to play with your food, or will you eat it?” the smile on Morrigan’s face robbed the rebuke of any sting. “If you finish everything, you may go out and play before we start today’s lessons.”

Swift as the shifting of a summer breeze, Kieran’s demeanour changed. With such a reward on offer, he attacked what remained on his plate with all the ferocity of the young: devouring the remaining rasher and wiping the grease and the last crumbs of his cheese up with a small hunk of bread. The change in attitude almost made Theron laugh.

“Canth I go nowth?” the words were muffled and distorted by the food still stuffed in his mouth as Kieran’s grey eyes flicked between them expectantly.

“When you have chewed and swallowed carefully, not before.” Morrigan answered and this time the chiding in her voice was not feigned or muted.

Obediently, Kieran did so, taking his time. When all was gone, he returned to looking first to Morrigan, then to him. “Now?”

Sharing an amused glance with his love, Theron nodded. “Very well, go out and play. Only take Karas with you.” At the mention of his name, the old Mabari’s ears twitched and he looked up from his place in front of the fire. As Kieran sped off towards the door, his words of thanks little more than gabble, Karas gave Theron such a look at being disturbed from his rest to shepherd a child, before following the little man out the door.

Alone once more, Theron looked at the woman who held his heart and, together, they shared a private moment of peaceful companionable silence. But - as all things must - it ended. Finishing what was on her plate herself, Morrigan stood. “I shall deal with the dishes and preparing your bag of supplies, whilst you, my love?” her golden eyes flicked to the staircase that led to the building’s upper rooms. “You had best prepare.”

Accepting the truth of her words, Theron drained the last of the small in his mug and stood as well. Giving Morrigan a peck on the cheek that had him swatted away with an amused annoyance, he turned and made his way up the stairs towards their bedchamber.

As he shut the door behind him, however, his smile and the lightness of his step drained away. With slow steps, he crossed to where a rug of sheepskin lay before the broad bed he had shared with Morrigan all these years. Throwing it aside, he opened the trapdoor that lay concealed beneath it. Why the ancient elves had required such a thing in this place, he did not know, but he knew the purpose to which he had turned it: the burying of a past life.

From the hollow concealed by the trapdoor, he pulled out a heavy oaken chest, bound with bands of black iron. A heavy lock held it shut but, groping around in the dark recess from which he had hauled it, he found where the key lay. Fitting the key to the lock, he opened it, tossing both onto the discarded rug. Theron rested his hands on the chest’s worn lid, trying to still breathing made ragged by more than just the effort of dragging it from its hiding place.

Every time he had left The Crossroads - to bring fresh supplies to keep them fed in this world without animals or the rich soil to grow crops - he had worn only simple travelling leathers, carried the simple but well-made hunting bow and knife Master Ilen had made for him so long ago. What lay within here were things that held a different purpose, that spoke of a life he had wished to put behind him. A life that he now understood he would never truly escape whilst the Blight still ran in his veins. A life bound by an oath both simple and stark:

_“In Peace, Vigilance; in War, Victory; in Death, Sacrifice.”_

Throwing open the chest’s lid, Theron gazed down into it. There, wrapped in oiled cloth, was his wargear. For the first time in over half a decade, the time had come to garb himself for battle.

Stripping off his dark green tunic and his breeches, he donned first a pair of tougher-wearing leather breeches, the leather black with silver stitching. Then he buttoned on his padded arming jacket, like the breeches dyed black. Pulling on high boots, their front faces plated with silverite, he struggled into a hauberk of the same metal. Rolling his shoulders to readjust to the weight of metal, he then removed from the chest his brigandine. The dark blue velvet that covered the interlocking silverite plates beneath had been repaired and replaced many times since he’d found in the commander’s armoury at Soldier’s Peak. With a familiar hand, he ran his fingers over the silverite rivet heads, before tracing the double-headed gryphon that was emblazoned at the centre. Buckling it on, his fingers easily working the multiple straps that held it closed from long practice, he completed his armament with a pair of vambraces made from dyed blue leather and silverite plates and gloves of black leather, the fingers cut short to allow a better grip on his weapons.  

Reaching in to bring them once more into the light, Theron first unwrapped his warbow. Made of ancestral heartwood, the clean lines of the bow’s pale limbs were inscribed with ancient carvings. From the sight of them and what Morrigan had been able to glean from them, they were an ancient elven dialect, most likely prayers or possibly a poem. Whatever their provenance, Theron had never held a finer bow. Taking its carrying case from where it lay beneath the bow, he slid the unstrung bow into it and looped the leather strap over his left shoulder.

After that, he lifted out the quiver of war arrows. Among the fifty or so arrows within the silverite-studded quiver were bodkin points for piercing armour, barbed broadheads for softer targets, and finally the perfectly-balanced, far-flying arrows that shem’len merchants across Thedas referred to as ‘Elf-Flight’ arrows. Whilst they might be of elven make, these in particular made by Master Varathorn of Clan Nomaris, the only difference between them and human-made arrows was that Dalish craftsmen took especial care when making arrows because they had the time and relatively little demand, rather than simply making them up in batches of hundreds like human fletchers had to. Of course, that never stopped gossips saying they were imbued with magic or some such nonsense.

With the quiver slung over his other shoulder, he strapped a dagger that lay within the chest to the small of his back. It was a fine thing, broad-bladed and able to be used for both combat and more utilitarian tasks. It had been a gift from an older elf of the Denerim alienage, a man he had saved from Tevinter slavers operating under the auspices of that bastard Arl Howe. Apparently it had belonged to the man’s wife. Forged of pattern-welded silverite, it had always served him well, even saving his life on one occasion. Securing it in place, he drew the first few inches of the blade, then snapped it back.

Finally, with a degree of care that approached outright reverence, he retrieved his swords. The first was the one that had been made for his hand alone. Starfang, Mikhael had named it, forged from _vhen’anara_ , the heart of a falling star. Wrapping his hand around the hilt of white leather strappings, he drew the blade half out of its scabbard, looking down with an almost fondness at the familiar, softly glowing, blue lines that ran through the blade’s smoky metal, along with the runes inscribed to make it ever the more potent against darkspawn, undead, and magic-users. Then, sliding it back into its scabbard of black leather, he buckled it to his swordbelt.

He did with the second of the two swords, which was a near-twin to the first, both of them forged either in the style or the actual time of the Storm Age. But where Starfang was smoke-grey, with lines of blue lyrium running through it like delicate seams of ore amidst stone, this was a blade of shining silverite, with golden runes inscribed upon it. Where Starfang’s hilt and pommel were set with polished aquamarine, this sword had a perfect, glowing topaz. It was Sunfang and had once been carried by Alistair’s father, King Maric Theirin. He had carried it out of the wreck of Ostagar and it too had been one of the blades that had laid the Archdemon Urthemiel low.

With both blades now hanging from his waist, Theron took one last thing from the chest. It had lain at the very bottom. Reaching in, he took from the oaken box a large silver medallion, its likeness that of a triumphant gryphon, rising from the fires of war. It was the mark of his rank within the order, something he truthfully should have left behind with Finn and Ariane for delivery back to Vigil’s Keep and his successor. But he hadn’t thought of it then and having it so delivered on his numerous supply runs had seemed like it would cause more trouble than it was worth. Bowing his head, he let the silver gryphon hang around his neck. It was the only piece of jewellry he wore, save for the rosewood ring that Morrigan had given him all those years ago, the ring that let her locate him, kept him connected to her. Even here, in this place, it had never left his finger. And it never would.

Placing the chest, empty now, save for the lock and key that he dropped into it before he closed the lid, back into its hollow, he closed the trapdoor and replaced the sheepskin rug over it. Then he stood and crossed to the polished mirror that lay in one corner of his and Morrigan’s bedchamber. He saw what he had expected to see. There, in that mirror, bereft only of his grey cloak and pack, he saw not a lover, teacher, or father.

He saw a Grey Warden, ready for war.

 

* * *

 

A little while later, the small family was gathered beyond where there home lay, in the field of many eluvians. All now were dark, save for one, which glowed with light and purpose. But it could wait a while, for now there was a more important thing happening: the saying of fond, loving, painful farewells.

Stood in front of his Mabari, Theron sadly scritched the behind the war-dog’s ear. He would’ve taken him with him, the pair of them striding into danger together as they had so many times. But Karas was old now, his muzzle starting to fleck with grey.

“Not this time, boy.” Theron said, a wan smile on his face as he remembered all their adventures since they’d first met at Ostagar. “Look after Morrigan and Kieran, understood? Guard them well.”

Karas snorted, huffed, but at last bowed his great head.

Patting the hound’s bull neck, Theron moved to kneel before his son. “I shall miss you, little cub. With all my heart.”

Kieran’s eyes were shining with unshed tears, and his little voice was so sad when he spoke. “I’ll miss you too, papa.”

Opening his arms, Theron staggered slightly as his son threw himself into the embrace. Enfolding him in a fierce, loving hug, Theron held for long moments, breathing in the smell of his child’s hair, trying to lock the scent and sight of him in his mind as securely as he could. Finally, a slight wriggle from Kieran let him know it was time to let go.  

Keeping his hands upon his son’s shoulders, Theron met the eyes that were so like his own, feeling his own pricked with tears. Then a thought came to him. Reaching to his chest, he took the gryphon amulet, the mark of his rank within the Order of the Grey, from around his neck.

“Here,” he said, looping it over Kieran’s neck. “take this. Whenever you feel sad, or alone, hold onto this, my son. And I know that I love you, and I will _always_ be with you.” Letting it hang - the chain would need adjusting, but that could come later - he put a hand to his son’s cheek. “A grown-up version of Ser Feathers, eh?” he smiled as he named Kieran’s knitted gryphon, that had been his playmate, guardian and companion since he’d been a babe.

Looking up from his inspection of the cunningly-wrought silverite, Kieran smiled. “I will, papa, I promise.”

Standing, Theron continued to look down at his little boy. “Keep your mother safe for me, all right?”

“Of course, father.” Kieran answered, looking up, his voice suddenly very serious. “She is the inheritor of the new age, just as you are the one who shall take the old ways and forge them anew.”

Theron’s smile stayed fixed at the answer. Every so often, Kieran would come out with things like that, words that sounded disconcertingly like prophecy. There could be only one cause for them, but for now he put them from his mind. With a final hug, Theron bid the little man farewell once more.

Then, finally, he turned to Morrigan. For long moments, neither spoke. They didn’t need to. Then he stepped forward and she advanced to meet him. Wrapping one another in each other’s arms, they met in one last, loving kiss. It was a fine thing, full of fire and affection, tempered only by the sad near-desperation of a parting. But that sadness, along with the kiss, was brought to an end by a singularly disgusted sound from their young son.

Separating, though still in one another’s arms, Theron looked softly into Morrigan’s golden eyes. “I love you, _vhenan._ ”

Morrigan held his gaze for a moment, before answering with a tenderness that she had come to accept and openly display over their years together. “And I you.”

With a smile, they separated completely. Looking to the glowing eluvian, Morrigan’s tone changed, becoming as instructional as if she was teaching Kieran his letters. “This eluvian will take you out in the Free Marches. Make your way to Kirkwall, beneath it lies the Emporium my contacts mentioned. The book that will guide you across the desert is the-”

“The diary of Friedrich von Geltberg, I know.” Theron interrupted. Of course he knew, they had discussed their plans in great detail. He also knew that she, Kieran, and Karas would remain here until the last of the supplies ran low. Then they too would rejoin the world, where they end up, neither knew. But he would find them. He would always return to them.

“Then, my love, it is time.” Morrigan said, with a sad smile. “Return to us quickly. Return triumphant.”

Touching a soft hand to her cheek, Theron nodded, though he never kept his gaze from the golden glory of her eyes. “I shall, _vhenan_.” then his smile turned to a grin. “Don’t I always?”

Sharing the chuckle, Morrigan took her turn to nod. “Indeed. You could do nothing else.” reluctantly, she gestured towards the glowing mirror. “The mirror awaits.”

Steeling himself, Theron swept up the pack that lay on the ground by his feet. Then with final fond looks and words of farewell, he turned to face the eluvian. For all that he had travelled by them over a dozen times, there was still a deeply-buried part of him that dreaded them. It had been a mirror such as this that had, years ago now, changed his life forever and destroyed that of Tamlen, he who had been his closest friend since boyhood.

Taking a breath, he adjusted the weight of the pack, and stepped forward.

And so it was, with a flash of light, Theron Mahariel, Warden-Commander of Ferelden and Hero of the Fifth Blight, returned to Thedas to walk its face uncloaked, on a desperate and terrible errand.

On a quest to cure the Calling.


	2. Back in the World

Theron had smelled many foul odours in his life. He had smelled the nauseating stench of Darkspawn spume in the darkest corners of the Deep Roads. He had stood on battlefields and felt his nostrils filled with the smell of mud and blood, piss and shit. He had even been forced to endure the time when Alistair had found a particularly blue-veined wedge of Anderfel cheese and then forgotten it was in his pack for three weeks. He had long since himself inured to such foul odours. 

But Kirkwall’s sewers? They were something else entirely. Something _riper._

Though it was not as if the city above was any better. He had walked through a devastated city twice in life, first at Denerim and then at Amaranthine, both after defeating the Darkspawn horde that attacked them. He had hoped not to do so a third time. But above him, a city smouldered. Some great catastrophe had been visited upon the City of Chains, what it was, he knew not. But he could read its echoes in the fires that still smouldered in destroyed portions of the city, in the terrified eyes of those few people who still trod the streets, in the armoured phalanxes of guards protecting the wealthier districts. 

It had been one of those with nowhere left to go that had led him to this path in the city’s dark bowels. The man had once had been a fighter, if he had any eye for it, but now was wrecked and ruined, dependent on what he called ‘dust’. For a gold sovereign, which Theron hoped vainly would not _all_ go to the procurement of such ‘dust’, he had pointed him down to these dark, malodorous catacombs. Though not without the cryptic warning of only finding what he sought “if the old man wishes it.” 

For what seemed like hours, he trudged through the reeking dark, along a less than dry walkway that ran alongside the river of oozing muck, built no doubt for the maintenance of the tunnels. Neither the close confines bothered him, nor the poor light. He had long grown use to such things. And after that time he had been knocked into a crevasse and separated from the others for nearly three days when retaking Kal’Hirol, no travel in the deep places of the world had ever disquieted him again. In fact, after what he had found there, after what had happened, it felt just as natural to him being below ground as when he walked amidst the trees and rivers of Thedas’ great forests.

At last, just when the first worms of doubt had begun to wriggle in his mind, the tunnel began to open out, the dampness beneath his feet fading until his boots were at last rapping on hard, dry, cool stone. A square of light appeared at the far end of the tunnel, dim but solid. Reaching it, he found it to be coming through the grilled watch-opening of a wooden door. Keeping one hand on the hilt of the knife strapped to the small of his back, he reached out with the other. The door opened freely beneath his touch, swinging wide on silent, oiled hinges. 

Stepping through, Theron found a wooden walkway beneath his feet, not hard stone. Beneath it lay a chasm seeming without end. Taking his eyes from it, he marched on, the walls around him opening out as he did so. After a short distance, he found himself stood upon a great platform hanging in the empty air. There was no doubt he had found the place he sought. Around him, unnumbered treasures lay, most in equal measure wondrous and unusual, and all illuminated by a great shaft of daylight from a square opening high in the cavern’s roof. But perhaps strangest of all the artefacts that lay around him - which included a golem and a mirror that made his flesh crawl to look at from pure memory-born reflex - was what lay in the centre of the platform. 

It had to be a statue. A statue of a man, incredibly - indeed unnaturally - tall, seated upon a throne. A pair of withered, grey arms clasped a book to the figure’s face, whilst more jutted obscenely from the figure’s wasted torso, some with their hands laid almost daintily upon the figure’s lap, others laying limp across the wings of the throne. Curious as to what material the sculptor could have used to create such a pallid, wasted figure, Theron stepped forward to peer at the strange piece of sculpture. 

“Did your mother never teach you it was _rude_ to _stare?_ ” 

At the sudden outburst, spoken with a voice at once booming and yet rasped with age unknowable, Theron leapt back, hands flying to the hilts of his blades. With a hunter’s keenness, he let his senses roam wide, searching for the speaker by both sight, hearing, and smell.

Nothing.

“Take your hands from your sword hilts, _now_!” the voice called again. “I went to the trouble of bringing you here, I have little desire to watch your insides being cleaned out of the floor by the urchin after Thaddeus is done with you.” 

As though in explanation, the golem stood in one corner awoke and turned to glare at him. If a statue could be said to glare without a single change of its expression.

Taking his hands from his swords, Theron held up his hands. 

"Much better.” the voice rasped. “Thaddeus, sleep!”

At the command, the golem returned to its inactive state.

Still searching for the source of the voice, Theron turned this way and that, throwing his own voice wide to carry to whoever might be listening. “You say you brought me here?” 

“Of _course_ I brought you here!” the mysterious and unseen figure answered. “Had I _not_ wished you to visit my emporium, you would still be walking with the rats in the _sewer_.” 

“You are the owner of this place?” Theron called, still trying to pierce the shadows that lay beyond the platform, hoping to spot a secret hiding spot.

“I am. And so you might do me the courtesy of _looking_ at me when we speak!” the voice was irritable now, before it dissolved into an utterly disgusting-sounding laugh. “Though not so close as before, eh?” Again, the horrific laughter resounded through the cavern.

At once, Theron understood. Eyes widening, he turned to face what he had taken for a statue. “You?”

“Xenon the Antiquarian, at your - aheh- _service_.” the voice had changed again, retaining its aged rasp, but now filled with the self-regard of a true academic. “How may I help you, _Commander Mahariel_? I foresaw your coming, but not your purpose.”

Theron blinked. “You _foresaw_ my coming? How?”

His answer provoked more of that horrific laughter, setting his teeth on edge. “The mirror shows me much, when fools aren’t staring into it, changing what they look like, do look like, and will look like.” a hacking sound, a cough more terrible than the laughter that preceded it, racked the voice, though the figure in the centre of the Emporium remained inert. “Now answer my question! I did not bring you here for conversation, I am a businessman!” 

Giving up on understanding the answer, though not without a flicked glance at the mirror in question once again, Theron gave his answer. “I seek passage across the great western desert. I believe you possess a tome that would help me in that endeavour: the journal of Friedrich von Geltberg.” 

“Freddy’s journal?” the Antiquarian barked out another horrific laugh. “Why not? I haven’t needed a coaster in over two-hundred years. _Urchin!_ ” 

Before Theron could even look around to look for who was being so addressed, a young boy appeared at his side. Stifling a flinch at the sudden and unperceived arrival of the youth, Theron looked down at him. He was young, maybe little older than Kieran, and yet the boy’s eyes were ill-set in such a youthful face. They were old, far too old.

“Fetch the journal of Friedrich von Getlberg!” the seemingly incredibly-aged owner of this ‘Emporium’ commanded.

Without a word, or even a bow of the head to register his understanding, ‘Urchin’ walked off on near-soundless feet, around to behind the great seat upon which Xenon reclined unmoving. For a few long moments there was the sound of rustling papers and jangling metal as objects were picked up and lain aside. To Theron’s surprise, the unseen stock-checking provoked a roar, though one strangely diminished. As he watched, every sense on edge, a bear cub appeared from around where Urchin had gone, its stride hurried but progress minimal due to its small size.

Then, he realised he was wrong. As it sped past him, he saw it was no cub. Its proportions were wrong, the snout too long, the fur too thick. It was a bear, full grown but…shrunken. He shook his head, this was a place stranger than most. And he had walked in the Beyond and lived in a world beyond this one.

“Chauncey!” the ancient Antiquarian commanded and, remarkably, the miniature bear halted in its tracks and turned, coming to rest beneath one of the figure’s pairs of legs, where it lay its small head upon its paws. “Good bear.” 

Before much time had passed - a fact Theron greatly appreciated - Urchin reappeared, carrying an iron-bound codex. It was not a large thing, but neither did the boy seem to even notice he held it, so easily did he carry the ancient book.

Proffering it to him, the Urchin retreated as Theron took the thing in his hands. Opening the latch, he saw that - true enough - it was the article he required. There on the title page were written, in a fine and dextrous hand, the words “The Journal of Friedrich von Geltberg: An Exploration of the Lands That Lie to the West of the Great Deserts of Thedas”. Flicking through the pages, though with due care and deference to their age, he saw all was written in the same hand. 

Closing both book and latch, he looked up, directing his gaze to where the book covered the face of the Antiquarian, Theron asked the obvious question. “How much for it?” 

Once again, the horrific chuckle resounded through the dark recesses of a chamber. “For such a _paltry_ thing, to such a _worthy_ hero?” Another bout of black laughter. “The merest price of _twenty sovereigns._ ”

Theron blanched. He had brought a fair deal of gold with him when he returned to the world, had squirreled away - at Morrigan’s urging - various other caches of coin with certain mercantile interests during his earlier supply runs. But still, for a _book_? For a thing that, until scant years ago, it being written in ancient Tevene, he would not even have been able to _read_? Regaining his composure, he opened up the contest.

“Ten.” the word brooked no argument, for all that it was given.

“There is no haggling here!” the Antiquarian rasped. Almost as if in demonstration, the golem returned to life.

“You said you were last using it as a coaster.” Theron shot back. “Ten.” 

“Seventeen and fifty silvers!” Xenon growled, setting the miniature bear to grizzling. 

“Twelve.” Theron answered, moving on the duel.

“ _Fifteen!”_ the ancient figure hissed. “Take it or _begone!_ ” 

Theron’s lips kinked into a half smile. “Done.” 

For a long while, all was silent. Then the chamber resounded to more of that gurgling, hacking laughter, before Xenon spoke again“Nicely _done_ , Grey Warden. Pay the Urchin, then… _depart_. Your route to the surface will be the first ladder on your left, once you pass the second rat-king.” 

Removing the required coins from the pouch at his belt, Theron placed them into a box held up by the still silent child, who looked up at him with those strange, aged eyes. Then, stowing the book within his pack, he turned and left the bizarre Antiquarian and his strange Emporium. 

It was a departure he was very glad to make, and so he made it _swiftly_. 

 

* * *

 

With a grunt, Theron pushed the drain cover free and returned to the light of day. He was not where he had entered, but the Antiquarian’s directions had proved true. Yet what greeted him was not much improved from the sewer he crawled out of. He seemed to be in the a part of the city yet poorer than even the lower town he had walked through to find the entrance to Kirkwall’s underground catacombs. All around him was the smell of dankness and decay he hated about all towns, a thing now years of experience had not managed to shake off. Only a few of the dwellings were carved into the rock Kirkwall sat upon, instead being creaking wooden tenements. The boards of their construction were ill-fitted and harshly weathered, bare flecks of paint still clinging to them, and between them hung empty washing lines, which barely shifted in the scraps of breeze that managed to find themselves in these close streets

Shoving the cover back into place with the silverite-capped tip of his boot, Theron moved on. Something seemed wrong about this place, whatever it was. There was a feeling in the air that spoke of expectant fear, a tension without explainable cause. Beneath the folds of his grey cloak, his right hand curled the dagger strapped to the small of his back. It was only when he turned a corner, entered into a cramped but open square of sorts that he understood where he was. He was in Kirkwall’s alienage. 

Or rather, the _ruins_ of Kirkwall’s alienage.

There, at the centre of the square, lay the Vhenadahl. Far from being green and growing, one of the last links for his city-dwelling kin to the memory of Arlathan, it was a fire-blackened wreck, its branches either hacked or burnt away and what remained of its trunk daubed in bright, crimson paint, the message as clear as it was crude: _“Knife-ear scum”._

Anger rose jagged in his throat as Theron looked at the sight. In his mind’s eye he could see it all: the baying crowd, every one of them _shem’len_ , their eyes bright and voices hoarse with hatred finally and explosively unleashed; the elves too quick or simply luckily enough to escape them, fear and sorrow and pain carved into their faces as those who had been - if not their friends - then at least their fellow citizens turned against them with fire and steel. The cheers of exultation and groans of despair as the first torch was laid to the tree. It made his blood pound in his temples, his free hand curl into a fist so tight his nails threatened to cut his skin. 

But then a sound - not imagined but truly carried in the close, fetid air - reached his ears that made his fist unclench, hardened his anger into something much more useful: cold fury and iron purpose. It was a scream, a cry for help.

The terrified plea of a child.

Hands moving beneath his cloak, Theron effortlessly located the source of the sound. It was a side alley, dividing one block of crude tenements from another. If the inhabitants of either yet lived, there was no sign of their intent to intervene. That was only natural, he supposed. Flattening himself against the wall of one, he edged towards the corner. He might have fought and killed Archdemons, Brood Mothers, even the Witch of the Wilds, but past exploit did not excuse any lack of wariness when approaching an unknown situation. A blade could strike from nowhere, take the life of even a veteran warrior.

Peering around into the alleyway, he found a scene he had dreaded and yet was not surprised by. A trio of _shem’len_ had a young elf surrounded and pressed against the filthy wall of one of the tenements. She was red-haired and could be barely more than twelve years old, if he was any judge, her frame just beginning the change to that of a young woman. That mattered little to her waylayers, such a thing was evident even without their words. 

“Scream all you like, little rabbit,” the words of their leader - a squat and balding, pock-marked figure, who by his leather apron was probably a butcher or some such thing when he wasn’t preying on the innocent - sneered as he held his prey at bay. “After what we did to you animals, nobody is going to stop us whilst we have our sport.” 

One of the man’s companions, by contrast a lean, hatchet-faced man, stepped forward and grabbed the girl had by the cheeks, pinching her lips hard together between thumb and forefinger. “Yes, you knife-eared slut. You’ll give us sport of _many_ kinds. You’ll be screaming so loud they’ll hear you in Hightown.” 

The last of trio, possibly a tavern bouncer or bruiser for some criminal fraternity, crossed his scarred and muscled arms, a smirk revealing a mouth fool of stained and broken teeth. “Scream pretty enough, darlin’, and maybe we’ll let you go once we’re done. And once with cropped those flaps of filth at the side of your ‘ead.” 

“Aye, only right thing to do to animals.” the butcher put in, before taking offence as the young girl’s eyes darted here and there, seeking either escape or aid. “Look at me, you little cunt! Look. At. Me.” 

“Speaking of cunts,” the hatched-faced man chuckled. “let’s have a look at the goods, shall we?” 

The man’s hand darted for the girl’s skirts. Terrified, she screamed again. And Theron stepped into the alleyway.

“Enough.” his voice had been long-since trained to carry, to instil fear and wield command. At the sound of it, the men wheeled, the big one stepping to cut the girl off if she tried to run and wrapping a hand tight around to forestal even the attempt.

“Fuck off, knife-ear!” the butcher snarled, showing his teeth. “This is no concern of yours.” 

“You will find it is.” Theron’s tone was blunt and unequivocal. “Let her go.” 

“Not a chance.” the thin _shem’len_ spoke with the easy confidence of one who liked inflicting hurt. “Piss off, if you don’t want this up you.” In paltry threat he drew a long and rust-pitted knife from his belt, the steel glinting in the weak daylight. 

“Easy, Thom.” the one who was either bouncer or bandit - the only one of the trio who looked an actual fighter - had caution in his voice and calculation in his eyes. “Look at his face, those tattoos. He’s Dalish, right headjobs that lot.” 

“Fuck that, Raff.” the knifeman spat, before dragging the girl from his comrade’s grip and holding the knife to her throat as he whimpered. “Get lost or this gets even bloodier than it’s going to be.” 

“I will not.” Theron answered, with the merest shake of his head. “Let the girl go and leave this place.” 

“Who the fuck do you think you are, slant-ear?” the butcher demanded, drawing a heavy cleaver from the belt of his leather apron. “What by Andraste’s fragrant cunt gives you the right to give _us_ commands?”

In answer, Theron rolled his shoulders, drawing back his cloak. The reaction of those facing him was almost comical, made him smile a cold, hard, wolfish smile. Three pairs of shem’len eyes fixed first on the armour he wore, then at the silver double-headed griffon emblazoned on his brigandine’s front, then finally to the twin swords in his hands, their runes alive with light. Mouths gaped, breathing held, the confidence of power vanishing as they found themselves stood before one yet more powerful.

Theron stepped towards them. With each stride forward, the sound of the hobnails of his silverite-plated boots striking the hard-packed earth rang against the filthy walls of the alleyway, each tread a herald of onrushing, certain doom. He could kill them all. He could eviscerate them with his blades without so much as a mark upon his body or his conscience. The last one would die before the first’s severed head hit the ground. Yet that was not his intent. Their deaths at his hand within the walls of the alienage would only invite revenge and further bloodshed. No, his intent was to terrify and drive off.

It worked. With an inarticulate yell of fear, the hatchet-faced assailant dropped his knife and ran for the opposite end of the alley. The butcher followed as his fat frame would allow, at one slipping and skidding in the alley’s filth, before he scrambled to his feet and ran on. The bruiser was the only one of the three who did not flee in utter terror. His retreat was more cautious, his eyes locked on Theron’s as he backed away, hand never far from the studded cudgel at his side. 

“This isn’t over, knife-ear.” the words were a bass and threatening rumble. 

“It is.” Theron answered back with utter implacability as he continued to walk down the alley, passing by the girl. “And if I come to hear of you or any others like you victimising the elves of this alienage again, then I shall return. And not one of you will survive.” 

His words made the man pause and for several long moments their eyes bored into each other, grey steel against inkish black. Then it happened, the breaking of the man’s resolve, the smallest inclining of his head in acceptance of his terms. Then he was gone, turning and sprinting away after his comrades.

Sheathing his blades as he turned around, Theron took the two steps back to the girl. She had not ran as soon as she was separated from her assailants, instead she was huddled against the alley’s wall, staring ahead with unseeing eyes, her knees drawn up to her chin and clasped tight. Kneeling down in front of her, he found himself pinned by wide, terrified eyes, brimming with terror-born tears.

“It is all right, little sister.” he said, keeping his low and calm and soothing, just as he had whenever Kieran had been terrified by his night terrors. “Those men are gone now and they will not return.”

He received no answer, just a held stare.

“My name is Theron.” he said, putting a hand to the gryphon emblazoned on his chest. He might be trying to reverse his Joining, but what it had made him still had benefits beyond killing darkspawn and scaring adversaries. “I am a Grey Warden. What is your name, little sister?” 

For long moments he thought he would receive nothing but silence again, until at last a name came haltingly from bruised and trembling lips. “Er-Ermina.” 

Theron smiled gently. “You have a pretty name, Ermina. Where do you live?” 

“We…we had a house. The shems burnt it, killed mama.” the words were spoken with the leaden terror Theron sadly recognised from other survivors of atrocity. “N-now me and papa live my auntie Dera.”

“Can you walk?” he asked, tilting his head slightly as he asked the question. She did not seem injured, but shock could rob the body of its strength just as easy as any wound. “Could you take me there? I’ll look after you, keep you safe while we get you back to your father.” 

After a little while, the girl nodded. “O-okay.” 

Smiling again, Theron nodded as well. “Okay.” then, rising to his feet, he proffered a hand to help her up. “Let’s get you to your Aunt Dera’s.” 

On legs still trembling from the shock, Ermina rose unsteadily to her feet. She did not take his hand. 

Sadly, that was all too understandable.

 

 

 

It was not a long walk from the alley where he had found the girl and her aunt’s house, but it was a difficult one. Ermina was justifiably traumatised, her step leaden and her pace halting. More than a few times she had stopped entirely, too scared to take another step without his gentle coaching. Then, at the cacophonous sound of a burnt tenement finally collapsing into ruin, she had screamed and clung to him, her face buried against his brigandine and arms clasped as tight as bonds of steel around his midsection. Knowing he would not be able to dislodge her, Theron had simply thrown his cloak over her and warmly chivvied her along, letting her know that - under his protection - she was safe. 

In time, at last, they came to the dwelling. Like the burnt wreck of the vhenadal, its front was marred by crude messages and threats, scrawled in blood-red paint. The shutters of the windows on the lower two floors had been torn away and lay shattered on the ground before the house, but the portals themselves were blocked by what seemed to be hastily affixed wooden boards. No love emanated from the place; only despair, fear, and the spectre of pogrom.

Putting one foot on the pair of steps that led to the door, a sturdy thing of iron-banded wood - perhaps the only thing that had saved the occupants from the mob, Theron hammered at it three times. 

There was no answer. 

Sighing somewhat angrily, for all that he knew the inhabitants were probably terrified themselves, he hammered at the door again. This time, it provoked a response.

“Go away!” the words were half an angry bellow, half a desperate plea. “You’ve already taken so much, what more do you want?!” 

Theron opened his mouth to give reply, but before he could was cut off by the girl still clung to his side.

“Papa just open the door!” the scream, broken by a sob, came desperate and terrified from Ermina’s throat. “ _Please_!”

Almost instantly, Theron heard the sound of a bracing beam clattering to the ground and the unlocking of heavy locks. The door opened a crack, through which he saw a wide and staring eye, before it was flung wide. The elf stood upon the threshold was perhaps a decade older than he, his pale face turned sallow by fear and grief. 

“Ermina, what in the Maker’s-” the question was cut off as, at the sight of him, his daughter detached herself from Theron and hurled herself at him, hugging him even tighter.

“She was waylaid by a trio of shems.” Theron explained, dragging the man’s attention from his daughter and bringing a horrified expression to his face. “I drove them off before they did anything, but they threatened her with enough.” 

The city elf nodded in understanding, stroking his daughter’s red hair - that she had evidently inherited from him - with one hand. The other clutched a scratched, simply-made shortsword, the knuckles white with both anger and fear for his daughter’s plight. Theron watched as he absorbed both his words and his appearance, the man’s blue eyes running over his face, his armour, the griffon on his brigandine. 

“Please, ser, come in, come in.” he said, turning - his daughter still clinging to him - to go back into his sister’s house. 

Nodding in reply, Theron did as he was bid. 

The interior of the house was as he expected it. It was sparsely furnished, lit by squat candles of what smelled like dog tallow. The furnishings were old, well-used, probably well-loved. The hearth stood cold, empty but for a heavy pile of ash. Evidently they’d not been able to buy or scavenge firewood for quite some time. Not for the first time, Theron reflected that often it was the case that those of his blood who lived in shemlen cities often had worse lives than those of the wandering clans. Life amidst the Dalish, but rare was it they lacked even the most basic of things. Clans could always hunt, forage, even steal. Here within stone walls, only the latter was available if one lacked coin. 

At the foot of the stairs that lay in one corner of the dwelling’s main room, a woman stood, evidently Ermina’s aunt Dera. Her back was as straight as an arrow, her eyes narrowed in a glare of suspicion, no fear or shock in either her countenance or body language. He was a stranger in her house and she evidently did not want him there. She could not be the sister of Ermina’s father, her skin was darker, her hair a russet brown. 

Speaking softly to his daughter, the city elf gently pushed her towards her aunt. “Take her upstairs, Dera?”

Nodding brusquely in answer, the she-elf put a protective arm around her niece and led her up the stairs to whatever room lay at their top. As she did so, her brother-in-law led Theron to one of the pair of chairs set before the empty hearth.

“I never should have sent her to get food.” he said, sighing and shaking his head as they sat down opposite each other. “But she was so insistent: she was faster, I was needed here, to keep things safe. Why did I let her convince me?” 

“Whatever has happened, she is safe now.” Theron answered, his voice strong in contrast to the other elf’s despair. “She will need time, care, and love to recover. But she will.” 

“I pray to the Maker it is so, Warden.” the city elf replied, before extending a hand into the space between then. “I’m Jethan.” 

Taking it in a warrior’s wrist-clasp, Theron nodded a greeting. “Theron.” 

If his fellow elf put the name and appearance to what had grown into his ‘legend’ in the years since the Blight, he didn’t show it. Perhaps, with all that had happened: the evident pogrom, his wife’s death, and now his daughter’s assault, he was simply too beaten-down by life to care. Only smiling a faint, weak smile, he nodded. “My uttermost thanks, Theron.”

“I only did what was right.” Theron replied, breaking the clasp. “But tell me, what happened here?”

“What does it look like?” bitterness seeped into Jethan's voice, understandable. “The shems turned on us.” 

“Why?” Theron asked, trying to make sense of it. Part of him knew that perhaps there would be none. 

His question made his host raise an eyebrow. “You haven’t heard?” 

Theron shook his head. “I have been…” the half-truth appeared after less than a heartbeat’s pause. “travelling the wilds.” 

Accepting his word, Jethan sighed, before telling his tale of woe. “A month or so back, a mage destroyed the Chantry, killed the Grand Cleric and hundreds of others. Knight-Commander Meredith went mad, they said, ordered the Annulment of the Circle.” 

Theron frowned, remembering his time at Ferelden’s Circle, Kinoch Hold. “I thought the Rite had to be permitted, not just declared in a moment?” 

Jethan shrugged. “I don’t know about that, Warden, but the Templars marched on the Gallows anyway, killing any mage they could find. But Hawke, the Champion, he stood against them. He even killed the Knight-Commander, then led his band and whatever mages remained out of the city.” As he continued, his tone grew grave. “The city was - still is, really - in turmoil. And with the mages gone, there was no one for the shems to vent their rage on, except for us.” Grief and his own anger warred upon Jethan’s face as he evidently remembered those days of blood and hatred. “So they did. As they always do.”

Wincing at having conjured those memories back up, Theron spoke up. “ _Ir abelas_ , Jethan. I’m sorry for your loss.”

“Thank you.” the response was stiff, before Jethan’s eyes refocussed on him after drifting away into the past. “I’m sorry to say that if you’re recruiting, Warden, you’ll find none here among our people. Anyone brave enough to join your order was killed by the shems when they tried to save others. If you want any recruits from Kirkwall, best go to your own.” 

Confusion flooded through Theron. “A clan is here?” The idea seemed strange. Surely even the most remote of the clans had been given the message that their people now had a homeland again, in the Hinterlands. 

“Mhm.” Jethan nodded. “Up on Sundermount, just to the north. Their keeper used to come here now and again, help us out, perhaps you know her?” 

“What was her name?” though he kept it from his voice, a dark sense of forboding was rising up within him. 

“Mare-something, I never talked to her.” Jethan shrugged. 

“Marethari? Was that her name?” an actual sense of fear made Theron almost snap at the man.

“Yes, that was it!” Jethan smiled, briefly, as the memories clicked back into place. “Odd though, not seen her here for almost a year.” 

The confirmation made Theron’s blood turn to ice. Surging to his feet, he bid his host farewell. Leaving him and his family the supplies of dried meat and hard cheese from his pack - he would always be able to buy or hunt more - he practically fled from the ramshackle dwelling. His mind racing, conjuring up terrible reasons for why his clan, his family, would still be here, rather than safe in the Hinterlands, he made for the city gates at speed. 

Something was far from right.


	3. Painful Reunions

As Theron trudged doggedly up Sundermount, the clouds that swathed its summit descended to meet him. Soon all before him was lost in swirling roils of vapour, stirred by intermittent gusts of an easterly breeze. It did not worry him, he simply kept his eyes on the track before him, his ears and nose open, everything he’d learned at the knee of Radha, his guardian and mentor. No, what worried him was the fact that Radha was here, on this mountain. That his entire _clan_ was here. Why? What possible reason could there be for his clan, his family, to still be here, not with Ashalle in the Hinterlands? 

Fighting down the surging, frenzied imaginings; the ideas that rose unbidden in his mind, each worse than the last, he pressed on. In time, the ground beneath his feet, little more than scree and scrabble-grass, began to level out into a plateau. In his mind, he could see Radha - the First Hunter of the clan and thus ever at the foremost of the vanguard - feeling the same shift in gradient beneath his boots and leading the clan on to find its newest camping ground. If they were truly here, they would not be far now. 

He kept his stride deliberate, forgoing all the training in the art of concealment and silent approach Radha had instilled in him through long years of training as he pressed on, into the shifting tendrils of cloud. Finally, he heard what he had expected - what he had hoped - to find: the smell of woodsmoke and cookfires, faint and near swamped by the fog, but there; the sound of breaths being held, and the smallest creak of wood, horn, and sinew as bows were drawn back. Within the grey mist, he perceived the merest glint of sunlight on arrowheads.

“Who goes there?” the call came hard and angry from a voice so familiar it struck his heart to hear it again. “What do you want?” 

Forcing his voice past the lump in his throat, Theron answered. “It’s me, Fenarel.” even though his old friend could doubtless not see him through the mist, he smiled. “I’ve come home.”

A gust of wind blew then, tearing the mist to ribbons. And there he was. His friend had grown older in the years he had been gone, his face now completely bereft of the softness of youth. What stood before him now was a true Dalish Hunter, his stance wary and an arrow still knocked to his bow. But even more troubling was that he wore not hunting leathers, but true wargear: a corslet of veridium links, reinforced by plate. If the clan had seen fit to garb themselves for war, all his worst fears might well be true.

As he met his friend’s gaze once more, Fenarel’s hazel eyes widened into shock. “Ther-Theron?” 

In answer, all Theron could do was spread his arms wide.

With an exultant laugh, one that Theron matched, Fenarel laid down his bow and rushed forward. Theron advanced and the two old friends shared a crushing bearhug. More laughter came as memories of bygone days spent hunting the wilds and carrying out the foolish yet joyful misadventures of youth flooded back to the sound of pounding of hands on backs. Reconnection had been made. This reunion, at least, was a sweet one.

Taking a hand from Fenarel’s back to clear away nascent tears, Theron looked over his friend’s shoulder to those that followed him. One was known to him instantly: Junar, another old compatriot of his youth. His bow relaxed and the arrow returned to his quiver, Junar was grinning broadly, with a look in his eyes that spoke of slight disbelief. But the other? She he did not know, not on sight. 

She was young, barely more than a da’len, but she had her _vallaslin_ and that was all that mattered. Within his mind, Theron stripped away the marks of June the Master of Crafts from her face as she stood back, the only one still wary and with an arrow knocked. Softening the now hard, distrusting features in his imaginings, he took her back the now near-eight years that had passed since he had left the clan. His findings shocked him. This wary figure, grown tall and thin, her face waspish and near-hostile, it could not be little Ineria, who had listened to him tell the history of the Fall of the Dales - her raven hair all in bunches - that last day before Duncan had led him into the battle against the Fifth Blight. And yet his heart told him he was correct. He had been gone a long time.

“Never expected to see me again, eh?” he said, taking his eyes from Ineria and dealing another open-handed blow to Fenarel’s back, not feeling the sting of striking metal. 

“I have to admit it, _lethallin_ ,” Fenarel answered, drawing out of the embrace, though he kept his hands firmly gripped on Theron’s shoulders. “I honestly did not. It’s been a long time. We heard tell of your victories, of course, knew what you had become.” his friend glanced down at the silver griffon on his brigandine’s front. “But still, after all these years, few expected to see you return to us.” 

“Well I _have_ returned, Fenarel.” Theron smiled, wanly, before the manner of his return pressed in on him, driving the smile from his lips. “But tell me, if you heard of my victories, why are you here on this desolate peak? Why is the clan not with Ashalle and the rest of our people in the land given to us?” 

The question similarly drove all joy from his friend’s face, made him close his eyes. “Theron, I-” Before he could continue, sounds of uproar came dully, indistinct, from out of the thinning mist behind him. 

At the swelling noise, Fenarel sighed angrily. “Dread Wolf’s hairy arse, can they not-” he bit off his annoyance, before releasing Theron and turning to those behind him. “Ineria, stay here and watch the path. The mist’s starting to clear, so find some cover. Junar with me.” the command and authority in his friend’s voice surprised Theron greatly. He truly had been gone a long time. Looking back over his shoulder, Fenarel tilted his head towards the noise. “Come on, _lethallin_ , time to let the others know you’re back.” 

Walking beside his friend as he retrieved his bow from where he’d laid it down, Theron shared a wristclasp with Junar, before the three of them set off together towards the swelling noise of discord. 

As they walked, true to Fenarel’s word, the mist drew back, riven first into swirling tendrils by the wind and then dispersed entirely. Moving through pinnacles of rock that shrunk the path to such a degree that they had to drop down to single file, rather than walk three abreast, the three hunters then emerged into a plateau, roughly circular in shape. There, Theron beheld a sight he had last seen nearly eight years ago. A sight that at times during his adventures, he had thought never to see again. 

His home. 

Though the location was one he had never seen - though it was nevertheless well-sited and eminently defensible, Radha had evidently lost none of his skill in choosing a campsite - the camp itself was ever it had been during the long years of his youth and early adulthood. The sails of the aravels stood tall in the weak late afternoon sun, the designs embroidered on their silk as familiar as the marks upon the back of his hand. Campfires glowed and smouldered, the smell of the stew cooking in the pots set above them as warm and welcoming as ever it had been when he’d come back from a hunt.

And yet, not all was well, as it had been in those elder days.

Stood before the aravel he recognised as old Ilen’s, what seemed like near the entire clan was gathered. But it was a clan divided. The battlelines of argument were centred around two figures he knew well, men he had hoped to see first again in a far more happier setting. In front his crafting bench, Ilen stood resolute, his arms - crisscrossed with scars and weals earned through the long years of plying his craft - folded in front of his chest in a gesture of utter defiance. Beside his were his apprentices - those Theron knew either by sight or by the repeated exercise of stripping away the advance of near and entire decade from their faces. They were less sturdy than their master in the face of the clan’s seeming ire, but were anchored by his stalwart presence. 

Against them was arrayed the rest of the clan that he supposed was not out hunting or on guard duty. Among them, Theron could see Maren - the clan’s Halla keeper - as well as Vinell and Variel. But at their fore was Paivel, eldest of elders and one of Theron’s greatest teachers, second only to Radhaand Ashalle. His spirit undimmed by age, Paivel’s voice - once so pleasantly turned to spinning tales and legends of the ancient past - was now turned to a far more aggressive bent.

“You would kill us, Ilen!” he pronounced sternly. 

“Yet I and my apprentices would survive.” the accusation shattered on the Craftsmaster’s ironbark resolve. “Better the clan should survive in some form that be utterly destroyed.” 

“What is a clan when its members so easily cast aside their kindred?” despite Paivel’s anger, there was also a sorrowful element to his voice. “How could you walk amongst our people, having abandoned us here, without goods to trade or weapons to keep us safe?”

“The let us leave this place, Paivel!” Ilen thundered, with all the force and ire that he had once delivered to wayward apprentices. “The game grows short and the _shem’len_ restless, we _**cannot**_ stay here!” 

“But without the halla we cannot leave!” the _hahren’s_ words shocked Theron, how could there be no halla? Maren had alway been diligent in the tending of their old companions. “The children, the sick, they would not survive such a journey without the aravels to shelter them!”

“Enough!” Fenarel’s voice rode hard and clear above the clamour. Striding forward into their midst, he fixed both men with hard stares. “Will you two do nothing but bicker and quarrel? We have other matters to attend to now.” turning back to him, Fenarel gestured towards Theron, his voice growing softer. “One of our own returns to us.”

For a long moment, all was stillness and heads turned and eyes locked to his own. Then - as he was recognised and then confirmed to be real in disbelieving eyes - all turned to a far more amiable uproar than that which had gone before. Cries of greeting tumbled towards him as the clan - once again united - rushed on to embrace him. Hands were clasped and hugs exchanged, volleyed cries of greeting given and returned as Clan Sabrae embraced its itinerant and yet still-beloved child. Theron smiled broadly as he returned the outpouring of affection. These people had always dwelt in his heart, as much as Morrigan and Kieran did now. Their ways were his own, their blood his blood. 

Through the exultant and loving throng, he was delivered to the two elders who - though now united in welcome - still stood apart from the whole. Bowing before them, Theron laid his hand upon his heart. 

_“Andaran atish’an, hahren.”_ he said, tone respectful and his eyes downcast as he greeted the two men. Looking back up as he drew himself out of the bow, he saw the love and joy creasing the two aged visages. 

_“Andaran atish’an, da’len.”_ Paivel intoned, warmth and welcoming flowing through his voice. 

“You come unlooked for, but far from unwelcome, child.” Ilen intoned, holding out his hand in greeting. “Welcome home.”

Taking the Craftsmaster’s wrist in a clasp that confirmed to him that - no matter the years that had passed - Ilen still possessed his strength of old, Theron smiled. “I am glad to be back, Master Ilen. More than glad.” but then the purpose for his return came back to him, making his voice serious. “But tell me, what is going on? Why is the clan still here, not in the south with our people? And where is Marethari, where is Radha?”

At his questioning, around him all the smiles died.

“You have been gone a long time, Theron, my child.” Paivel began, pain in his voice. “There is much you need to know.”

“And none of it is good.” Ilen added, sighing heavily.

 

* * *

 

What seemed ages later, Theron knelt before a line of stone-covered cairns. Despite the solid bulk on the mountain beneath him, he felt like his entire world had been whipped away from under him. His chest felt hollow, his heart absent. All that he had heard from Ilen and Paivel had struck him like the blow of a warhammer. Even now he could not make sense of it, wanted to shut his eyes and open them again to find it was all a lie, all nothing but a bad dream. 

He tried. Nothing changed. What had happened remained the same. 

Over and over he turned the tale of woe Paivel had spun him over in his mind. How could Merrill - always so considerate and level-headed in his memories - have done this? How could she have betrayed Marethari, betrayed the clan? Because of her, Marethari was dead. Because she’d bound the clan to this place through Marethari’s refusal to give up on her - even when what she was doing was madness - Harshal was dead. Chandan was dead. Pol was dead. He’d not known Pol really, the city-elf having come to them just before his departure, but from what the others said he’d proved himself a worthy member of the clan, had been just about to earn his _vallaslin_ and take his place truly amongst the people. But his loss, nor even that of Marethari, was what had ripped the foundation from his world. 

Because of Merrill, Radha was dead.

All because of her selfish desire and that **_fucking_** mirror.

His pain as he looked at the cairn that marked the grave of he who had taught him everything he knew as a hunter and woodsman, of he who had truly been a father to him, was absolute. Nothing, not even Tamlen’s death at his own hand had torn at the very fabric at his soul like this. Not even the hands that touched his shoulders could alleviate, though they doubtlessly wished to.

“I am so sorry, Theron.” for all that he was also kneeling, speaking near-directly into his ear, Fenarel’s voice was almost muffled to him, such was his focus on the pile of stones with the little sapling sprouting amidst them that lay before him. 

“I know what he meant to you, _da’len_. He meant a degree as much to all of us.” Paivel’s voice was once again its calm, soothing self. As if he was still a child in truth, needing calming after a trip or stumble. “I remember how proud he was when he heard of your deeds in Denerim: he could not stop smiling, as you know a rare thing for him. I’ll treasure that memory for as long as I still live. Treasure _your_ memories of him, child. Do that and he’ll never truly leave you.” 

He didn’t know if it was due to some grunt from him or their own volition, but the hands withdrew and the figures retreated, their footfalls echoing dully as they retreated back to camp. Alone, Theron looked at the sapling that marked the grave of he who walked the tallest in his mind, even now. And he remembered. 

_ He remembered Radha’s eyes alight with pride as he loosed his first arrow at a living target, a magnificent twelve-pointer stag, remembered his hand clapping to his shoulder as the dart took the great beast through the heart - a perfect shot. _

_ He remembered Radha giving him soul-searingly explicit instructions about what it was to be a man and love a woman, instructions that - whilst the learning of had been horrific to his then-youngmind - he’d since put into practice many times. _

_ He remembered the broad smile on Radha’s face as - his face still afire with pain he’d nonetheless refused to give voice to - he’d walked up to his guardian with his vallaslin newly inscribed upon his skin. The same design as Radha: the intertwining trees of Andruil, Lady of the Forest and Goddess of the Hunt.  _

_ He remembered his guardian’s far slyer smile of recognition after he got back to the aravel after a night spent with Liranna, the first girl he’d ever loved. He remembered the way Rahda had deflected Ashalle’s questions for him, all the while letting him know he knew exactly what he’d been up to.  _

He remembered many things. He remembered everything he could, from the greatest moments to the little domestic nothings of a lifetime spent growing to manhood under Radha’s stern but loving guidance. And he remembered Merrill, once his friend, and all they had been to each other. Friends, companions, confidantes. But now those memories were tainted, their shining lustre erased by sorrow and fate. 

The sound that, rising jagged in his throat, finally tore itself free of Theron’s mouth was no sound made by elf, dwarf, or human. It was an elemental scream, a primal how of grief. Rending the air, it echoed off the stones of Sundermount, a gods-cursed scream of pain and loss. Within the camp, all who heard it felt their own sorrow rise again, redoubled. Sat before his aravel, Paivel closed his eyes as heard the torment of the man he’d watched grow from when he’d been just a babe in Kalaya’s arms. 

For what seemed the longest time, he simply sat upon the ground, lost in his own grief. But then he heard whispers, heavy footsteps approaching, the slight jingle of ringmail. Opening his eyes, he looked up to find Theron stood before him. Far from the bereft, glassy-eyed look he’d worn ever since the terrible news of all that had transpired in his absence had been told to him, Theron’s eyes were hard, blazing with an intensity he’d never seen before in the young hunter as they sat within a face marred by the dirt and dust of mourning. And when he spoke, that fire was in his voice. 

“We are leaving this place.” the words were not a suggestion, they were an iron-bound command. “All of us.” 

 

* * *

 

Weeks later, Fenarel walked through his clan’s camp. Around him the fires crackled whilst above him the stars wheeled in the heavens. It was good to be back in Ferelden. In all their wanderings, he’d always liked the country of the Hound Lords the best. He couldn’t explain it, he simply did. The small amount of cheer within his own breast he saw and heard reflected in other members of his clan. Now that they were off of Sundermount and gone from the Free Marches, joy had slowly begun to creep back into their lives. The men and women sat around the fires were chatting amiably, whilst the children played amongst themselves, smiles on their faces if not laughing outright. After all, for all their newfound cheer at being away from that place of sorrow, scant days away now from joining Ashalle and the rest of their kin in the place now known as the Dalish Hinterlands, the going here had been tough, the pace set for them hard, if not unreasonable. 

It had been impressive, amazing even, watching Theron take charge of the clan. His manner had been indomitable, his will absolute. Command and authority had practically shone from him as he laid out the preparations that needed to be made for their departure from Sundermount. Complaints and objections had been made, but with a brusqueness that approached hostility he had shot them down, no one questioning him further when he did. 

The most pressing matter had been the absence of any halla to draw the aravels, without which the children, the wounded, and the old could not travel. Theron had simply declared he would head into the villages and stud farms around Kirkwall and purchase horses. He’d left the next morning, few expecting he would return with any success. After all, who would sell to a Dalish, and what funds had he, for all his fine wargear? Three days later, true to his word, he had come back with two full strings of great draught-horses. Nerion, Maren’s predecessor as the clan’s halla-keeper, had protested, saying that it would insult the gods to lash such beasts to the aravels in the place of halla, an objection he’d only raised when the reality of the matter had sunk in. 

Theron’s reply, the words ironclad and filled with dread promise, still rang through Fenarel’s thoughts.

_“The Creators are lost to us and our halla as well. I will not let devotion to the memory of either endanger my clan. And all who_ **_would_ ** _do such a thing are my enemies, Nerion.”_

The objections to his plans to get them to their new home, any of them, had fallen silent after that. None wished to test this new Theron, a man of war and grim authority. The man who had laid an Archdemon low. 

After that, he had led them not to Kirkwall, but to Ostwick. Kirkwall, he said, was a place now unfriendly to those of the blood of Arlathan. Along the way, Theron had forbade any in the clan from walking barefoot, as they had the past years since the beginning of their time of troubles. Adherence to the _Vir’Halam_ \- the Way of Sacrifice, in which among other things the clan had gone barefoot in reverence and memorial to both Arlathan and the Creators, in the hopes of relief from their troubles - had not been so ingrained that any had protested, even if they’d had the courage. Now they walked or rode the aravels, their feet covered in their familiar hard-wearing, fur-lined boots. It was a thing Fenarel was most grateful for. 

Arriving in Ostwick, it had taken some days for Theron to find a captain both willing and possessed of a large enough ship to transport them across the sea to Ferelden. It had also cost no small amount of coin, something he’d confronted Theron about during that decidedly uncomfortable sea-crossing. Theron’s explanation of how he had money making more money in the care of _shem’len_ merchants had shocked him. His old friend truly had become a part of their world. In fact, in these past weeks, since that first hug they’d shared, there’d been little to see of the young hunter he’d once known and called _lethallin_. 

_“But he **is** his my friend and that is the end of it.” _ Fenarel reminded himself, annoyed at thoughts that it might be otherwise. 

Walking out beyond the ring of aravels, Fenarel moved to where Theron’s lay. Since returning, he’d refused shelter in any of the clan’s aravels, no matter the weather. He’d even refused to use the one he’d grown up in, though that was understandable - doubtless there were many ghosts dwelling within it for him now, along with memories. Instead, every night, after eating with the clan, he’d walk out and make a fire just behind the watch pickets. There he’d sleep, wrapped in his bedroll, alone. 

He was not asleep when he’d found him, not that he’d expected him to be. Instead Theron was knelt over a _shem’len_ codex-style tome, poring over it and making notes on it in another, far smaller journal. He’d spotted him doing such a thing on many a night during their journey, though he’d never asked what he was doing or why. As Fenarel watched, impressed by his handwriting and draughtsmanship as he finished copying what looked like a map, as far as he could tell, a brief image of them learning the rudiments of both things at Marethari’s feet flashed in his mind. He’d always hated writing class. Tamlen had too.

The image faded however, as Theron finished his transcription. Sprinkling some ash from the edge of his fire on the page to fix the ink, Theron locked away his writing things in a carrying case and stowed it in his pack. Looking up, his old friend’s lips shifted into the smallest smile. 

“ _Aneth ara, lethallin_.” he said, gesturing for him to sit. 

“ _Aneth ara._ ” he answered, taking a seat beside him, in front of the fire the fire. “All is well?”

“It is.” Theron nodded, before looking to up to the heavens and sighing. “We should reach the Hinterlands in just a few days now. We’ll meet up with whatever clan finds us first and then find Ashalle.” 

“It’ll be good to have land of our own, Theron.” Fenarel smiled, his voice as warm as the fire before him. He could already imagine having a house of his own, a place to stand tall and raise a family. He wondered if Clan Taneleth had made it there, if Rissa was perhaps still unmated. His smile grew briefly distant as images of their time at a number of _arlathvhens_ flashed through his mind. But then he returned to the present, to the man sat beside him. “I know I’ve said it before, _lethallin_ , but thank you. For getting us off that mountain. For getting us here.” 

“I didn’t do it alone.” Theron shook his head. “I only gave the clan direction, Fenarel. _You’re_ the one who’s kept them together, not me.” looking away, he picked up a large leather flask. Unstoppering it, he drank a healthy draught of the contents, before offering it over. 

Smiling, able to smell the contents from where he sat, Fenarel leaned over and took the flask from his friend’s hand. Putting to his lips, he took an equally healthy swig. It seemed, for all that he had changed, Theron’s love of mead had not deserted him. 

Passing it back over, Fenarel sighed. “Elgar’nan and Mythal, Theron, who could’ve predicted this?” 

“No one.” Theron chuckled, albeit ruefully, before taking another drink. “And if they had we’d have called them liars.”

For a while the two friends sat in amiable silence, watching the flames of the small fire flicker and dance, passing the flask between them every now and again. But as Fenarel reached over to take it back once more, his eyes slid to the two books that lay to his friend’s side. “So what is with all that writing, anyway?” 

Looking down at them, Theron’s smile - which had grown somewhat since first he’d sat down - faltered. “It’s the journal of a _shem’len_ explorer, who travelled far to the west, beyond the great desert.” 

“I didn’t know there _was_ anything beyond it.” Fenarel said, intrigued, as he raised the flask to his lips.

“It seems there is.” Theron’s voice was almost wistful, before he sighed. “And that is where I must go, once I have seen the clan safe to the Hinterlands.” 

Still taking a drink, Fenarel’s eyes shot wide in surprise, the mead threatening to shoot down his gullet. Barely clearing it with a cough, he stared astonished at Theron. “You’re leaving _again_?” the words were a horrified whisper.

“I must.” his friend answered, plainly. 

“Why?” Fenarel asked, trying to make sense of it. He’d just come _back,_ and now he was off to the ends of the earth?

“Because that which has made me a Grey Warden must be unmade, if I am ever to live a full life among the People.” Theron’s tone was leaden. “None know how that might be done, at least none who yet live. But the peoples this explorer describes are strange and powerful. I have to believe they can rid me of it.” 

For what seemed a long time Fenarel simply stared at his oldest of friends, trying to find the words, think it through. But in the end, there was only conclusion, much as he hated it, much as it left a hollow feeling in his guts. “Then I suppose you must go. And we will watch for your return.” 

Theron’s smile returned, if only slightly. “Thank you, _lethallin_.” 

“Think nothing of it.” the words came easy, as true ones always did. Then, feeling weary - a feeling no doubt helped by the mead - he stood, passing back the flask. “Let you return to us in far better a state than you found us this time, living in a new land with our people.” 

He’d meant the words to be a light farewell, if still earnest in their message, but as he walked away Theron called out to him.

“Fenarel.” turning at his name, he saw Theron gazing into the flames of his fire. When he spoke, his voice was once again stone. “If in my travels, I find Merill? If I find her?” his eyes shifted, glaring into Fenarel’s own from beneath his brows. “I will kill her.” 

Matching his friend’s glare, Fenarel felt his own smile fall, his voice go hard. “And I will rejoice to hear of it upon your return, _lethallin._ ”

With that he turned again and made for his aravel.

 

* * *

 

“Ashalle, come quickly!” 

Looking from where she’d been sorting the herbs in the pantry of her house - something that even more than half a decade a later she still loved to think of as her own - Ashalle was surprised to see Lanaya, Keeper of Clan Nomaris, stood in her open doorway. Though almost-absurdly young to be a Keeper, for all the details of how she had come to that position, Lanaya had proven herself wise and level-headed. Indeed, she had been a helpful ally in her work as she acted as a mediator between the clans now settled in the land Theron had won for them. So it was rather surprising to see a broad, almost ecstatic smile plastered across her face.

“What is it?” the question was obvious, but she asked it anyway. With the smile, it could not be some fresh quarrel that required their attention. 

“Your clan, Ashalle, Clan Sabrae is here!” Lanaya’s words were jubilant as she ran into the golden daylight.

Abandoning her work with such haste that one of the pots of dried herbs shattered on the floor behind her, Ashalle rushed out to join her. She might be old, but this news gave her feet wings as she hurried from where her house stood on a low hill in the valley settled by Clans Nomaris, the members of the clan her dear Theron had helped save living in a mixture of now-static aravels and fresh-built houses. Puffing up another rise to stand beside Lanaya, she saw them. She saw a sight she had not seen for nearly a decade. A sight she’d prayed daily to Mythal and all the Creators to be allowed to see again.

The sails of the aravels, embroidered with symbols so familiar and so beloved, were caught high in the morning breeze. The wagons themselves were pulled by shining white halla, though curiously a double string of horses were tethered to the rearmost wagon. Evidently there was a story _there._ As they drew into the valley proper, the elves of Clan Nomaris ran up to greet the new arrivals to what was now their land. She did not join them. The rush here had already worn her out. Instead she decided to stand by Lanaya to greet them. 

That decision was cast aside as, the clan reaching the foot of the rise, she saw it was who led them at their fore. 

“Theron.” his name was a caught breath, quickly expelled as she powered down the slope, all her years forgotten. 

Seeing her, her sweet _da’len_ strode up the hill. Creators, but he had grown so tall, when once he’d been a babe in her arms. Flinging wide her arms, she caught him in a fierce embrace, one returned with a near crushing strength. Theron, her dear little cub, was here as well. She had never even dared to wish it. Tears fell from her eyes without shame or prompting. He was here, he was back. 

“Oh, Theron.” she smiled into his shoulder, little caring about the feel of the studded velvet of his armour’s facing upon her cheek. “I dared not hope to see you again.” Breaking the embrace, but keeping one hand to his shoulder, she wiped the happy tears from her eyes with the heel of a palm. “Tell me, where’s Radha? No doubt he’s chivvying the laggards at the back alo-”

The look on Theron’s face stopped her words.

He didn’t even need to say anything. 

She knew. 

“No, Theron, no.” she shook her head, drawing away from him. She couldn’t bear to hear him say the words hidden behind that fallen face, those tear-filled eyes. If she said them her heart would break, her world would shatter. Not Radha, not her _vhenan_ , not like this. “Theron, please, no.” her words caught in her throat, tore at her soul. 

Theron simply stepped forward and enfolded her in his arms again. 

“I’m so sorry, _mamae_.” he said, his own voice raw with anguish. 

He’d never called her or Radha ‘mother’ or ‘father’, not once in all the years he grew under their care. Every time he’d done so had pricked her heart, but she had borne it for the memory of Kalaya and Geheron. Hearing it now, after so long of wishing for it, made it worse. It completed her agony. Tears of a far bitterer kind running down her face, she returned the embrace. 

She clung to the son of her heart, if not her blood, lost in her grief.

 

* * *

 

The night was dark, the skies clear, when Theron stepped out from Ashalle’s house, into the land he had won for his people. For four days he had sat with her, grieved with her, tended to her needs. He’d cooked for her, a thing he’d hoped to do in far happier days. But life makes a mockery of hopes when it wants to. And now he had to go. Ashalle knew that. She’d even said goodbye, and that she hoped to see him soon.

“You’re away then?” 

Turning to the figure leaning against one of the corner pillars of the house’s porch, he nodded. “I have to, Fenarel.” 

“I know, _lethallin_.” Fenarel nodded, sighing. “Just hurry back.” 

“As swiftly as the Creators allow.” Theron answered, before drawing he who was now his oldest friend into an embrace. “You’ll look after her while I’m gone?” 

He felt, rather than saw, the sad smile of his friend over his shoulder. “Of course, _lethallin._ ” as they separated, Fenarel nodded again. “As though as if she was _my_ mother.” 

“Thank you.” his words came as a relieved sigh. 

“Bah,” Fenarel waved them away. “ _El nadas,_ old friend _._ ” Moving behind him, he lay a hand to the door of Ashalle’s house. “ _Dareth shiral_ , Theron. The Creators watch over you.” 

His eyes closed against the sorrow in his heart, Theron smiled over his shoulder. “And you, Fenarel.”

Hearing the door shut behind him, Theron stood for what seemed an age, but could only be moments. Around him, he could hear the sounds of the night. Somewhere high in the trees that clung to the valley’s slopes, an owl hooted, answered soon after by another. In a bush closer by a badger gave its chattering bark, no doubt disturbed in its nocturnal foray by both his and Fenarel’s presence beneath the tree, whilst off in the distance a fox cub gave a plaintive cry, swiftly answered by its mother’s deeper call. There were a hundred more sounds, some so quiet that they could barely be heard and some louder, pushing to the forefront of the nighttime symphony.

Opening his eyes, Theron breathed deep, filling his lungs with the night air. As he did so, he drove down his sorrow and his pain. Some other time he would let them resurface, let them take their natural course, but now they were not useful. His grand task still lay before him, the undertaking that would win for him the chance to return to these green lands he had won for his people and grow old beside them with Morrigan and Kieran. The west beckoned. 

But he could not go just yet. Friedrich’s journal told of many dangers, dangers he would not face alone. Now, as he had before, he had need of companions. And he knew just where to look. 

Letting his breath out in a cloud of vapour, Theron squared his shoulders and focussed his mind. And then he set off, into the night.


	4. Old Companions, A New Adventure

_ “Commander, if you could just take a look at the trade reports?” _

Nathaniel Howe suppressed a sigh, letting only a slight shudder indicate his desire to most decidedly _not_ do that, and preferably never do it again. Amongst all the bits of parchment that crossed his desk in his roles as Commander of the Grey and Arl of Amaranthine - scouting reports from the field, repeated letters from Weisshaupt all-but-demanding more details on his old commander’s disappearance, and all manner of bills, invoices, and proposals regarding the upkeep of Vigil’s Keep - the trade reports were his least favourite.

There was just something about them, some unknown thing that his very soul seemed to dislike on sight. When he had taken over from the obstinate bully that had been sent by Weisshaupt to replace his vanished comrade, something even the reinforcing Wardens that had accompanied the now-deceased fool had welcomed, he had swiftly found the analysis and appraisal of the trade revenues of the arling the most laborious of his duties. But it had to be done. The coin must flow.

Turning to the man following at his heels, one of the vast and faceless number of chancellery scribes that served as the arling’s administrative backbone, as he made his way to his chambers at the top of Vigil Keep’s towering citadel, Nathaniel held out his hand. With due deference, the scribe - an elf, somewhat curiously, though he had no problem with the fact - handed it over. 

“Thank you.” he said, genuinely for all his distaste for the scroll itself. His father had taught him never to thank servants, whilst his mother had told him to do so always. It had been but one cause of their many, many arguments. But, as he did in most things nowadays, he cleaved to his mother’s example, rather than his father’s. 

Bowing his head, the elf said simply “Commander” before turning on his heel and returning back from whence he came. Watching him go before turning back, Nathaniel made his way the rest of his way to his chambers. Outside his door two senior Wardens - both men from Weisshaupt but nonetheless reliable and true - stood guard. Acknowledging their salutes with a nod, he took the key from his belt and entered his chambers.

He had been Commander for almost four years now, had once been in line to inherit the Arling anyway, but still there was the slightest edge of discomfort at being in these rooms. They had, after all, once been his father’s. But stifling the feeling once more, he crossed the solar to where his desk lay. Setting the scroll down upon it, he readied himself mentally to trudge his way through the thing. He was glad the fire in the room’s double hearth had been banked up, there was always a draught when the wind was in the east. Still hadn’t figured out why. If Voldrik, the master stonemason who had rebuilt so much of the Keep’s stonework, had still been around, doubtless he would have found the cause in less time than it took to frame the request. But alas, the dwarf was gone, commissioned by the crown to aid in the rebuilding of Elmridge, which still had not recovered - even now, nigh on a full decade afterwards - from being devastated during the Fifth Blight.

As if commanded by the thought, outside the wind shifted into an easterly blow. Flowing through the unseen fault in the room’s construction, the chill night air slid unwelcome up his spine, making Nathaniel shudder and curse the very air itself.

_ “Still not found the cause of that draft then?”  _

At the unexpected question, Nathaniel whirled around, a hand flying to the hilt of the dagger strapped to his hip, a thing said to be forged from one of the claw’s of Dumat, the first Archdemon. But even as his fingers curled around the worn black leather of the weapon’s grip, Nathaniel’s mind caught up to his natural fighting instincts.

He knew that voice. 

“Theron?” he said the name to what seemed like an empty room. Then his grey eyes snapped to the fireplace, where a pair of silverite-plated boots stuck out towards the fire. Their owner’s face soon appeared from around one of the wings of one of the pair of tall, broad-backed armchairs set before the hearth. Sure enough, it was the face of his old commander, comrade, and friend. 

The self-satisfied smile of a triumphant prankster splitting his features, Theron regarded him. “It’s good to see you again, Nathaniel.” 

Hand falling from his dagger, Nathaniel strode across the chamber, his long legs carrying him across it in but a few strides. In answer, Theron rose from the chair and advanced to meet him. Coming together, the two Wardens clasped wrists, warmer smiles now on both their faces. 

“How?” Nathaniel asked. “How are you here?” 

“This keep might not once have been my family’s seat, Nathaniel, but I commanded it long enough to know a few ways in that might escape notice.” Theron said, with a friendly chiding to his tone. “After that, it was a simple matter of scaling the tower and jimmying the window. Always meant to reinforce that latch.” 

Blinking at the fact his old comrade had mentioned climbing the citadel as though it was nothing more exerting than a morning stroll, though perhaps he should not be surprised at that, Nathaniel managed to get another question out. “Where have you been all this time?” 

His smile becoming gentler, Theron returned to his chair, Nathaniel taking the other. “With the woman I love, helping her raise my son.” 

Nathaniel’s brows rose ever higher at that. “And why have you come back?” 

At the question, Theron’s face hardened slightly, before returning to its easy smile. “That can wait for a time. Tell me, how’s your sister? And her boy?.”

Smiling at the mention of Delilah, Nathaniel nodded. “Delilah is well, Padric too. Albert’s a good man, a good father. They’ve actually had another child whilst you were gone, a girl: Lyanna.”

“My congratulations, Nathaniel.” Theron said, leaning over to pat the man’s arm in celebration. As he leant back, he looked into the heart of the blazing hearth, evidently steadying himself. Then his gaze returning to meet Nathaniel’s own, he asked a more serious question. “Now, tell me everything. What has happened since I have been gone?”

First locating some wine and pouring each of them a healthy measure, Nathaniel did as he was bid. He told his old comrade everything. He told Theron about the initial chaos following his disappearance, of his own ascension to the command of the Ferelden chapter, and then his temporary ousting by the Warden-Constable sent by Weisshaupt. He told him of Anders’ disappearance, and that of Velanna. He told him everything he could think of - Grey Warden business or no - in as much detail as he could. Theron asked few questions, instead staying silently ensconced within his chair, absorbing the information. When at last Nathaniel ended his tale, it was with a question of his own. 

“And what of you?” he asked, as Theron threw another log onto the now smouldering hearth. “Where have you been, truly? And why have you come back?” 

Staring into the crackling flames, his old commander’s face was grave. It had grown increasingly so with each new detail and revelation he had provided, as he laid bare each new trial and tribulation both the Wardens and Thedas as a whole. At first it looked like he would never answer, but then at last he spoke.

“In another world.” he said, still gazing into the fire. Before Nathaniel could ask for more, it was provided. “Nearly eight years ago, the Fifth Blight was ravaging Ferelden. I did not fight it alone. Beside me stood men and women of courage and ability: King Alistair, Oghren, numerous others, from an elven assassin who tried to kill me to an ancient dwarven golem. Among them, one of the first I met, was Morrigan.” A slight smile touched the old commander’s lips then, before fading again. “A Witch of the Wilds, she was like no woman I had ever known before; as beautiful and terrible as a storm. As we fought together, we became…close. Then, the night before the army I had gathered departed Redcliffe, Alistair and I were told the terrible truth by Senior Warden Riordan. To kill the Archdemon Urthemiel for good, one of us would have to die.” 

Nathaniel nodded gravely. He knew the stories, of course, everyone did. In none of them did the Warden that made the final blow against an Archdemon survive. Corin, Bregan, Garahel, as well as the unknown Warden who had laid Dumat low; none had walked away from the final, terrible contest. He knew why as well now, every Warden did, but were sworn to secrecy. And now before him was sat the first Warden ever to survive the slaying of a tainted Old God. 

“That night, Morrigan came to me. She knew of a…ritual. It would save my life, save all of our lives. The archdemon would die and would take no Warden with it. But the ritual had a cost.” Theron paused then, the expression on his face indicating that he disliked using that last word. “The ritual resulted in the birth of a child, my child. In return for my life, she took that child to raise on her own, vanishing into the night. A year after we defeated the Architect and saved Amaranthine, I heard news of her.” 

“And that’s when you disappeared.” Nathaniel stated, remembering the chaos that had followed the Commander’s sudden disappearance. 

Theron nodded. “I finally tracked her down in the Dragonbone Wastes. I could not persuade her to stay, but doing so to take her with me?” a corner of Theron’s mouth kinked upwards in a slight smirk. “That was somewhat easier. Together, along with Karas, we stepped through an eluvian - a device made by the elves of Arlathan to traverse great distances - into a world beyond this one. That is where I have been these last years, helping to raise my son, Kieran.” 

For what seemed an age, all was silent in the chamber, save for the crackle of the hearth. It was a lot for Nathaniel to take in: his commander had a son, a son that was seemingly the result of a ritual that had saved him from having to die in killing in the Archdemon, a son he had then spent the past near-eight years raising in _another world._ If it had been any other man sat before him now, he would have thought the man mad, would have laughed. But there was a certainty in Theron’s eyes, a serious look upon his face. And it made sense, explained why he had seemingly vanished without a trace, beyond the reach of their best trackers. But now he had returned, and that too required answering. 

Asking the question, Nathaniel finally found himself held by his commander’s grey eyes as he looked from the fireplace. “I have returned because I must. If I am to ever see my son grow to manhood, if I am ever to live a life of peace amongst those I love, that which makes me a Warden must be unmade. I must free myself from both the taint that runs through my blood and from the spectre of the Calling.” 

Nathaniel could not resist a chuckle. “Nothing _too_ challenging then?” 

His grim demeanour breaking, Theron echoed the chuckle. “No, nothing too challenging.” Sitting back in his chair, he sighed. “I have a lead, and I believe it’s a good one. But I will need companions beside me if I am to achieve it. No matter what the bards and tavern-singers say, I have accomplished none of my deeds alone.” 

“Have you spoken to King Alistair?” Nathaniel posed the question, in turn leading forward. “Surely if you asked he would grant you a regiment of soldiers to aid you.” 

“He would, yes.” Theron smiled, before shaking his head. “But no, I have not asked him for help. I will write him a letter, before I leave to follow this lead of mine, explaining what I’m about, but I cannot distract him with thought of aid. Not now, with what looks like a war between mages and templars seemingly about to erupt all over Thedas. And besides, where I will walk, I shall need not an army, but only a few able and trusted friends.” The smile became his knowing, challenging smirk. “Know you of any that might follow me?” 

Nathaniel Howe smirked back. “Aye, Commander, I might just at that.” 

* * *

 

Oghren, once warrior of House Kondrat and now Warden-Constable of Ferelden, was annoyed. Actually, he was sodding angry. His anger at being woken up half-way through the sodding night, after a particularly enjoyable drinking bout with one of the Anders Wardens - Micah or something like that, couldn’t remember the nug-licker’s name worth a damn - had settled on him like an old and familiar cloak. Ordered by that pipsqueak of a chamberlain to - on Commander Howe’s bloody orders - present himself at the postern gate in full armour and kit, he was now stood in the rain, listening to the clatter as the big, heavy drops hit his armour’s plate. 

Damn fine plate, this. Bit too shiny for his liking, something that mincing blacksmith had refused to alter, no matter the price _or_ threat, but it was damned fine. He could still remember the day he’d gotten it, fighting by Theron’s side through a whole host of Darkspawn to reclaim the old city of Kal’Hirol, using the forge-cities great foundry to remake the armour of Paragon Hirol. Ever since that day, it had never failed him, no once. So, for protection like this, he could stand a little shininess. 

The rain could still sod off though. 

Drumming his fingers on the haft of his axe, a fine weapon that they’d found in the tunnels beneath this blasted keep, though making sure to keep the ring that’d activate its fire runes far from it, he sighed angrily. In an instant, he regretted it, because it invited comment from the one other person abroad this foul night. 

“Something wrong, Oghren?” Sigrun asked, from where she was leant against the wall of the archway that led to the postern gate. Her voice was its ever-chipper self and as ever it grated against the grain. What kind of Legionnaire was chipper? What kind of _dwarf_ was chipper? 

“Other than being dragged out of bed, told to armour up, and stand out here in the pouring-sodding-rain?” he growled. 

“Of course!” Sigrun’s smile managed to infuriate him all the more. Now he wanted to punch something. “You know you can wait under here, right?” 

“That means having getting close to _you_.” he muttered, spitting to clear his mouth of what had been left behind from the night’s ale. He must have been sodding gasping for it, back in the day, to have even thought of wanting to be near to this cheery, annoying-

“Wardens.” the grim blighter’s voice cut across his thoughts and he turned to see Nathaniel Howe, their oh-so-wonderful commander walking towards them, some hooded sod at his side. He was an improvement on that arse from the Anderfels, but not much of one. Seems - with one exception - command made perfectly good drinking buddies insufferable. Still, shoving that bloody bastard from the Anderfels off that ridge in the Knotwood Hills had been one of the few pleasures not to do with Felsi and the Nugget he’d had since Theron’d left.

Turning to look at him, his beard now thoroughly soaked and sending drips down, under his armour, Oghren glowered. Sigrun, still-infuriatingly happy despite the hour, provided an actual response. 

“I apologise for the lateness of this summons.” Howe continued, always so polite now. 

“You bloody better, nug-humper.” he grumbled, more to himself than the Commander. 

“But there’s an important mission, one that I can only send the pair of you on.” Howe explained.

“Aye?” Sigrun asked, from behind him. “What’s the task, Commander?” 

Howe smirked then, and Oghren had a bad feeling he was being played. “I think I should let the one who’ll be leading you explain.” 

Oghren began to growl at him for the sodding enigma routine, but then the cloaked one pushed his hood back and-

‘ _Ancestor’s hairy arsecracks.’_

“Oghren, Sigrun.” Theron Mahariel smirked back at them. 

Dropping his axe, Oghren surged forward, the weight of his armour a non-sodding-entity. Dropping to one knee, Theron opened his arms and the two men met each other in a fierce bearhug. He had to give respect to the pointy-eared bastard, he took a full bull-charge with barely a twitch. 

“Good to see you, old friend.” Theron said, and Oghren could feel that smile on his face, even as he hammered his back with a volley of blows.

“And you, you sodding nug-humper.” he answered, between blows. It was definitely the rain on his face, nothing like tears or bronto dung like that. “What’s the job?” 

“Curing ourselves of the Taint.” was the simple answer. That’s all he needed to hear. 

“Say the word, salroka, and I’ll follow.” Breaking the hug, he nonetheless kept his hand on The Warden’s shoulders. “Where we going?” 

“To get more friends, lethallin.” Theron answered, still grinning. Seems the rain had gotten to his face too.

“Denerim then?” Oghren asked, tilting his head. To be sure, the little pike-twirler had a lot on his plate now, what with that crown on his head, but he had a strong arm in a fight. Knew how to stand.”

“No,” Theron answered, with a shake of his head. “Antiva.” 

Oghren’s face fell. He had to be joking, couldn’t be sodding serious. But the way that smile on Theron’s face shifted into a smirk told him all he needed to know. 

_Sod it._

 

* * *

 

The screaming of the gulls, as ever, served as Zevran’s wake-up call. Eyes fluttering open, he pushed himself up, before leaning back against the bed’s carved headboard. Looking down, he smiled an easy smile at what he saw. Last night had been something wonderful indeed. Letting his eyes wander, he traced the curves and graceful lines of his bedmate’s form. Chiara d’Almaretti was a wonder, truly. As graceful in bed as she was in a fight, she was - like him - a former Antivan Crow. Now she was his right hand in his guerrilla campaign against the guild that had ruined their lives and countless others. He suppressed a chuckle as - still asleep - she groaned at his movement, substituting his side for one of the few pillows to survive last night’s diversions, wrapping her arms around it and truly snuggling into it, quite adorably. 

Her movement prompted another, deeper groan. Looking over at the last member of their nocturnal triumvirate, Zevran drank in the corded muscle and statuesque frame of Timeo. He had been less passionate, somewhat more hesitant, last night. That was only to be expected, however, for a man’s first time with another man after a lifetime’s devotion to the fairer sex. But once such hesitancy had faded, he more than made up for it with earnestness. The tanned and raven-haired former boxer and pit-fighter from the docks had proved himself a leal ally these past years, in both his fighting skill and his ability to wrangle the more errant of their acolytes where either his own tongue or the threat of Chiara’s blades would not suffice. In a way, he reminded him of the Qunari he had once travelled with, albeit more ready with a smile or jape. 

After briefly losing himself in the memory of those heady days, when he had fought alongside a hero to defeat a Blight, Zevran shook himself from nostalgia and rose smoothly from the bed. Padding across the rented room in one of Antiva City’s foremost boarding houses, he retrieved his clothes from where they lay scattered across the fur rug-bedecked floor and donned them swiftly. Checking both his knives were still sheathed within his tall boots, he gazed fondly at the two nude figures still lying in idyllic repose upon the bed. This had been good for all three of them; a snatched bit of respite amidst a war, nothing more, but still good. Quietly, he departed the room.

There was, alas, work to be done. 

Swiftly making his way through the teaming streets of what was - to him - the greatest city in the world, Antiva City, he returned to what was the base of his operations in his efforts against his former paymasters. The towering warehouse, once owned by the now all-but-impoverished Montilyet family, to judge from the carved crest above the door lintel, was not the most glamorous of locales, but it had served both him and his cause well. Once he had ejected the previous occupants - a group of particularly unsavoury mercenaries and slavers - anyway. 

Flipping both a grin and a coin to Reynard, the giant, scarred, and utterly mute doorman who worked the daylight shift, who raised the shining gold piece in silent salute, Zevran entered the towering edifice, swiftly finding himself in the garrett that was both his more permanent lodging and the heart of his enterprise within the city. The topmost room in the building, it was awash with the trophies of his campaign against the Crows: a blade here, a hat or belt buckle there, all marks of the elimination of chapter masters and cell leaders. His efforts were bearing fruit, not just in the city, but across Thedas. Soon the Crows would either be destroyed, or under his command and thus subject to his reforms. The latter definitely was the more appealing: names and reputation take so much to make, after all. Business would be easier with the weight of tradition behind him.

It was to that business that he now tended, crossing to the desk upon which lay the requests for his services that the more lower-ranked in his organisation brought to him, amongst their other duties. Ideological war against your former guild, after all, did not pay as much as one might hope. Thus, solo efforts had to be undertaken. Picking up the sheaf of parchment, he settled into a chair to leaf through them. 

Most were what could be expected: jilted lovers wanting either the one who abandoned them or the one they abandoned them for dead, acquisitive sons wanting infuriatingly immortal fathers taken care of, businessmen wanting other businessmen dead for the purposes of business, they were requests that he’d seen, read, and carried out Maker knew how many times. Then, setting down a request of Marquesa d’Valentinois to eliminate another noblewoman who had worn finer shoes than her at the last royal soiree, he read one that _finally_ piqued his interest. It was written in a blocky, bold hand. 

_‘Master Arainai,_

_I find myself in need of your services. Not only for your skills in dealing death, but also for your skill at tracking and your sterling reputation for loyal service. There is a treasure I would have found, and whilst I know where it lies I require assistance in obtaining it. For aid in this endeavour, I would see you handsomely rewarded. If you consent to such a task or wish to know further details, I will await you at ‘The Merman’s Rest’. I will be wearing a grey cloak._

_T’_

In truth, Zevran knew he should ignore it. Treasure hunts were rarely simply and swiftly-handled affairs, and usually let to the ruin of a good pair of boots from trudging through places both dark and dank, and yet…he was intrigued. It had been a good while since he’d taken on a job that wasn’t simply murder for love, jealously, or commercial interest. Those things were fine, even provided diversion at times, but engage in too many and it did become a tad repetitive. So, resolved to at least hear the details of this proposal, Zevran set aside the parchments and stood. He did not go to the door, however.

First, he would need to change. 

Striding to the great wardrobe that lay in the garrett’s corner, Zevran doffed the clothes he was wearing as swiftly as he had the previous night. Taking a moment to admire himself in the reflection of the mirror set upon the inside of the wardrobe’s door, he began to select his ensemble. The mysterious ’T’ had a good taste in meeting locales: The Merman’s Rest was a fine place, down by the northern harbour, good quality in both food and wine, yet not pretentious. Thus his outfit would require elegance but not pomp. 

Slipping on a flowing cotton shirt, Zevran then belted up a pair of breeches made of a lustrous blue wool so dark it was almost black. Then he pulled out one of his favourite jerkins: cut from black bear hide, it was ornamented with just a little silver stitching to match its buttons. What most people would never expect was that, between the two layers of leather, silverite discs protected the more important parts of his torso. Those failsafes had actually saved his life once, when a rather headstrong Crow recruit had attacked him as he left the Opera. He’d expected the attack, had invited it by his rather public appearance. He hadn’t expected the young fool to get close enough to be able to try to put a knife through his heart. Though the disc had caught the thrust, the bruise it had caused had ached abominably for weeks. 

Dismissing such memories, Zevran pulled his tall black boots back on, checking the knives were still in place, before donning a blue cloak, edged in silver thread. Contrasted against his golden hair, it looked quite fetching, if he did say so himself. Finally, he put on something very special to him. A pair of Dalish-made gloves, they had been a present from the finest man he’d ever known. After he had told Theron Mahariel, who had been first his target, then his leader, then his friend, that his mother had owned a pair and that he would dearly wish to have a pair again, to remember her by, the Dalish hunter had reappeared but a few moments later, the pair he had worn when he had left his clan in his hands. 

_“Here,”_ he’d said, simply. _“you can have adjusted when next we find a leatherworker. But for now, have them all the same, as a gift.”_

He’d never been given a gift before.

Fondly running his fingers over the tough, yet supple leather, lined with rabbit fur Zevran smiled, before pulling them on. Then, tucking his shirt sleeves into them, he inspected his reflection. As always, by the Maker, he looked good. 

Leaving the wardrobe behind, he then crossed to the weapon racks that lined one of the garrett’s walls. First taking and then secreting a small arsenal of throwing knives of various forms and sizes, he stood mulling over his choice of main weapon for quite a while. It was like choosing shoes, or a hat, choose the wrong one and it completely destroyed your entire ensemble. Finally he selected an Antivan duelling sword, perfectly-balanced with a three-bar hilt of silver steel and a scabbard of blackened quillback leather. The blade itself was of silverite, acid etched with flowing designs that hid the runes that would drain the energy of anything they cut, perhaps even paralysing them outright. Another would have chosen dragonbone for such a weapon, but he’d never liked the purple colour blades made of such material possessed. Completing his armament with a similarly silver-hilted stiletto for his off-hand, Zevran sighed happily and left first the garrett and then the building entirely. 

With the morning well advanced, the streets of Anitva City were teeming with activity. People hurried to and fro, their destinations and purposes known only to them, whilst stallholders who could either not afford or else simply did not desire permanent shops on the city’s labyrinth of streets sold their wares to any who would pause for but a moment. Children, wild things in homespun clothes, some without even shoes to cover their feet, darted here and there, either playing games or cutting purses. Noblemen and grandees moved more lazily, accompanied by retinues both large and small, their time completely given over to their leisure. And, above it all rose the clamour of a city at peace. 

_“New boots, hardwearing and comfortable! You, sirrah, the softest kidskin gloves for your lady perhaps?”_

_“Wine or ale, makes no difference, I have it all!”_

_“Finest metalwork in the South! Rings, bracelets, anything you could desire!”_

_“Fruit, fresh from the vine! Get your fruit here!”_

The murmur and hubbub was punctuated by sharper tones, and words of altercation.

_“Move that donkey, quickly now! I am on an errand.”_

_“You rob me with such prices, you are no better than a thief!”_

_“Insult me at your peril, friend!”_

_“You, boy, stop! Give that back!”_

Turning aside to let the jinxing form past, Zevran smiled at the juvenile thief’s rapidly retreating back. Turning, he caught the eye of the aggravated store-holder, a rather pugnacious-looking human. At first the hirsute fellow looked set to start a fight, incensed at what he doubtless saw as his abetment of the young larcenist, but then the man’s eyes moved to the weapons at his hip and - with a growl and the throwing up of his hands - he simply returned to his stall. With an amused shake of his head, Zevran continued his journey towards the northern harbour. 

His progress was a pleasant thing, for all that he nonetheless kept a watchful eye for any enterprising Crow or hireling of that selfsame now-rapidly crumbling edifice. ‘Love’ was no longer something that entered into his life for any person, man or woman, but he most definitely did love Antiva City. He loved its streets, drenched either in sun or rain depending on the day. He loved its smell - seawater mixed with wine and spice, with just the merest undertones of rot. He loved its very stones. He had travelled to many cities in his life: Kirkwall, Ostwick, Denerim, even the gilded jewel that was Val Royeaux. None compared to his home. 

Moving with the ease of a practiced denizen, he soon found himself at the northern harbour. Here were moored the pleasure craft of the wealthy, along with with the warships that protected the Rialto Bay. The larger, deep-hulled trading vessels were consigned to the larger southern harbour, but that did not mean the wharves here were any less bustling with activity. Seeing the elaborately carved and painted figure of a merman that indicated his final destination, he made his way towards it, only to pause. Looking down an alley, he saw a pair of kittens - strays, from their condition - engaged in what seemed to be only a mock battle. Deciding to stay and watch, Zevran formed an audience of one as the two animals circled and leapt, batting each other with their paws to the sound of high-pitched mews and yowls. To his surprise and delight, the smaller of the two - a truly tiny black specimen with a notched ear - proved the victor, pinning the larger combatant and nipping at it until it submitted. Amused by its little mew of triumph, Zevran moved on.

Walking up to The Merman’s Rest, he scanned the tables that lay in the restaurant’s shaded portico. First he saw what he expected: the wealthy-but-not-too-wealthy of Antiva, enjoying a late morning repast. There were burghers and merchants in their freshly-bought and too-garish silks, the wives of such men or their courtesans, lesser and increasingly impoverished nobility, and academics who barely had the coin to eat here and stay out of debt. But then-

_A-ha._

There, at the far corner of the seating area, a small figure sat, swathed in a grey cloak. A dwarf. Somehow, he felt he should have known. The handwriting on the note that had drawn him here had been of a dwarven style, all hard lines and stark letters. Threading his way through the seemingly random arrangement of tables, he made his way to where the cloaked figure sat, a tankard of what could only be ale the only thing on the table. 

Drawing closer, he saw that his becloaked contact was female, and rather pretty in spite of - of perhaps even _because_ of - the tattoos that covered her face, including the one that he knew marked her as a casteless to any of her kith that cared about such things. Smiling a practiced and winning smile, he sat down in the chair opposite her, leaning back and flicking his cloak back over his shoulders. 

“So, we meet at last.” he said, with a respectful bow of his head. “I take it you are the enigmatic ’T’?”

“Nope.” the dwarf beamed a smile as she shook her head. “Just the one he sent ahead to make sure you showed. He’ll be along presently.”

“A-ha, subterfuge, I love it!” Zevran chuckled, before picking up the small card that listed what was on offer that day. “Though I usually prefer to engage in it _after_ breakfast, would you like something?” 

Again, another beaming smile. “Nope!” 

With that, the dwarf hopped off her seat and walked away, leaving Zevran alone. Resisting the urge to look after her and see where she went, he instead put on an air of total non-concern. Idly looking over the menu - the selection _was_ rather good here and he hadn’t eaten that day - he nonetheless let his free hand drift to his side. As he scanned the last of the delectable offerings to be had, he heard the jingle of ringmail behind him. At the sound his hand clenched around the stiletto’s hilt, ready to draw it and-

“I have to hand it to you, Zevran,” a voice he had not heard for nigh-on a decade stopped his hand. In fact it near-damned stopped his heart. As he watched, none other than Theron Mahariel - resplendent in the Warden’s armour he’d taken from Soldier’s Peak - sat down opposite him, a steaming bowl in his hands. “you were right: this fish chowder is without compare.” 

Moments passed. _Long_ moments passed, as he looked into the grinning face of quite possibly the finest man he’d ever known. Part of him wanted to do nothing more than launch himself across the table and hug the man. But the chowder had to be respected. After letting him have several generous spoonfuls, he finally found the will to speak. 

“So,” he said, before catching the eye of a server and making the universally understood sign for wine and plenty of it. “you’re back.” 

“I am indeed.” Theron smiled, between another spoonful of chowder. “You’ve kept the gloves, I see. Not the boots?”

“Alas,” Zevran answered, using a smile to conceal his shock. “the boots fell apart, the gloves have not.”

“Well, they were doeskin.” his oldest and truest friend conceded, nodding thanks to the waitress as she deposited a carafe of wine and two goblets on the table. “Not elk, like those.” he gestured towards the gloves he had mentioned with a now-empty spoon. 

“Well go on, do not tease, my friend,” Zevran found his practiced calm becoming more natural as he slipped into the easiness of conversing with an old comrade. “what task is it you would have of me?” 

“That,” his fellow elf took a sip of wine to accompany his chowder, a wise move. “is quite the tale.” 

It was a tale that Zevran listened to with glee. A tale that made him at several times once again want to hurl himself across the table to embrace his friend. The sheer idea of Theron and Morrigan being parents was a thing that brought true mirth to his face, let alone the delightfully domestic stories such things involved. And then there was everything else: word of the unmaking of blood oaths, of strange tales of lands far off, of desperate hopes and more desperate errands. More than once, a part of him screamed to say no - that there were things he needed to attend to here. But Theron was asking for his help. 

That decided things. In an instant.

Chiara and Timeo could handle things for a little while. 

“There is just a thing, my dear friend.” he began, refilling Theron’s now-empty cup. 

“Yes?” Theron answered, taking a sip of the delightful pale wine. 

“Yourself, myself, Oghren,” it was a mixture of amusement and nascent horror that coloured the utterance of that last name “and this Sigrun…” 

“Yes?” the word was flat as his friend set his cup down.

For the first time, he fixed Theron with a truly serious look. “Do we not need a mage?” 

And for the first time, in nearly a decade, he saw the Commander of the Grey and Hero of Ferelden _wince._

“Ah.” 


End file.
